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: for plan read play 

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: for clepistic read definite 

: for Parapsychism read Pan- 


psychism 


: for Geulinck read Geulincx 
: for universe of the universe 


read mirror of the universe 


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ization 


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stamm 


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: for Kohnstamen read Kohn- 


stamm 


: for have not read have 


274, Index : for Kohnstaman read Kohn- 


stamm; for parapsyschism 
read panpsychism 





THE CRISIS IN PSYCHOLOGY 


LONDON: HUMPHREY MILFORD 
Oxford University Press 








THE CRISIS 
IN PSYCHOLOGY 


By HANS ‘lida 


PROFESSOR OF PHILOSOPHY 
IN LEIPSIC UNIVERSITY 


PRINCETON 
PRINCETON UNIVERSITY PRESS 
1925 





<i OF PRINGE } > 






AS. 22 1925 
<7 © 
Si pecans seurt 


COPYRIGHT, 1925, PRINCETON UNIVERSITY PRESS 


Printed at Princeton University Press, Princeton, N. J., U.S.A. 


TO MY FRIENDS 
IN THE FAR EAST 
IN PARTICULAR 


DR. CARSUN CHANG 
AND 


MR. CH U SHI YING, M.A. 





PREFACE 


HE problems discussed in this book have 
formed the subject matter of a num- 
ber of lectures which I delivered during the 
years 1922 and 1923 in various parts of the 
world. In the form of a complete course these 
lectures were presented at the National Univer- 
sity of Peking; shorter courses were given at 
Nanking and at the Imperial University of 
Tokyo, and all that refers to normal psychol- 
ogy was condensed into a single lecture delivered 
at Columbia University. Therefore, when asked 
by the Princeton University Press to choose a 
subject for a volume, I did not hesitate. The 
subject selected had already been received with 
the greatest interest in both the Orient and the 
Occident, and was at the same time the one in 
which my own interests are at present centered. 
Psychology, of course, forms part of my gen- 
eral philosophical system. It fills a long chapter 
in my Ordnungslehre, and one whole book of 
mine is devoted to the problem of mind and body. 
Thus I am not here dealing with the subject for 
the first time, nor was I in my lectures abroad. 


Vill PREFACE 


But the character of this new book is very 
different from my former publications. For this 
book, grown out of university lectures, is ad- 
dressed to an interested general public and deals 
with its subject in such a way that any person 
with a general education may follow it. As psy- 
chology, in my opinion, is the most important 
and the most promising of all sciences at the 
present time, I hope that the number of those 
who are inclined to follow me may not be small. 

It may interest the reader to know that Ber- 
trand Russell’s Analysis of Mind is also the 
crystallization of his Peking lectures. I have not 
referred to his fine work in the text, as I have 
tried to avoid polemics as far as possible. The 
reader may compare and may judge himself. 
Leipsic, May 20, 1924 

Hans Drisescu 


INTRODUCTION 


O other science today is so “problematic” 
N.. psychology. There is, in fact, almost no 
question in psychology which is settled in the 
way that many questions in mechanics or in 
biology, for instance, are settled. But among all 
the unsettled questions in psychology there are 
some problems of the very first order, so to 
speak, and it is with problems of this kind that 
this book will deal. These problems have in our 
day reached a critical point, i.e., a point of turn- 
ing from one aspect to another, and we may 
hope that under the new aspect they may lose 
a good deal of their problematic nature. While 
studying, therefore, the actual crisis in psy- 
chology, we intend at the same time to lay the 
foundation-stone of a psychology which will 
not be forced to pass through a critical state 
again, at least in the near future. 

The reason why all psychology is of a problem- 
atic character is obvious: The subject-matter 
of psychology, though the closest, the most im- 
mediate to us, is not something that exists in 


x INTRODUCTION 


space. And the constitution of our mind, unfor- 
tunately, is such that an analysis which may 
proceed to the very last details is possible for 
us only if the details of a spatial manifoldness 
are in question. Language, too, has been created 
with regard to that which is in space, and thus it 
comes about that with regard to all explanations 
in the realm of psychology language is rather 
more of a handicap than a help. 

What, then, are the problems “of the very 
first order” in modern psychology that have 
reached a critical point nowadays, and that are 
to be discussed in this volume? There are four 
such problems, as far as I see: The mind-body 
problem, the problem of the wnconscious, the 
problem connected with psychical research, and 
strange to say, perhaps, the problem of the 
fundamental materials and laws of normal psy- 
chology pure and simple. 

As to the mind-body problem, it is well known 
that the hypothesis of so-called psychophysical 
parallelism, which seemed to be so well estab- 
lished at the end of the last century, has been 
attacked and refuted from many different quar- 
ters during the last seventy-five years. The 


THE CRISIS IN PSYCHOLOGY x 


problem of the wnconscious (and subconscious ) 
has become almost “‘popular” nowadays, and so 
has also, to a still greater extent, psychical 
research or “parapsychology.” So far, then, 
there is no question about the problematic and 
critical character of the subjects chosen for our 
further discussion. 

But what about normal psychology pure and 
simple? Is not this an “official” science of a most 
elaborate character ; has it not been the subject 
of text-books and manuals for many years? Cer- 
tainly; and yet we venture to say that “official” 
normal psychology has become one of the most 
problematic scientific subjects during recent 
decades, and that there has hardly ‘been a scien- 
tific revolution in our time comparable to that 
in normal psychology. 

We shall now begin at once to go in medias 
res, and have still to say only a few words here 
about our general arrangement of the various 
subjects chosen for discussion. I shall arrange 
all these subjects as if I were writing a complete 
text-book of psychology. In this way I shall 
have the opportunity of briefly mentioning and 
enumerating all problems of that thoroughly 


Xl INTRODUCTION 


problematic science. But most of these prob- 
lems will be merely mentioned and no more; only 
the four groups of problems which we have 
asserted to be “of the very first order” will be 
discussed more or less fully, and among them 
normal psychology, pure and simple, will occupy 
first place and will receive the most elaborate 
analysis. The advantage gained by this method, 
it seems to me, is the following: In this way, and 
in this way alone, will every problem occupy its 
proper place in a well-ordered whole. This is 
very important, as all “‘science”’ is, to be sure, 
nothing more than logic, in the widest sense of 
the word, or theory of order.’ We shall, then, 
discuss the forms of order of psychical life with 
special reference to its most important problems, 


1In my Ordnungslehre (2nd edit., 1923) all psychological 
problems are discussed as parts of my system of logic; 
cf, chap. D, pp. 315-419, 


CONTENTS 
PREFACE 


INTRODUCTION 


1? NORMAL PSYCHOLOGY 
1. The subject of psychology 
2. The theory of materials 
A. The method 


B. The theory of elements 
i. The pure qualities or 
suchnesses 
ii. Data with regard to space 
and time 
iii. Pleasure and discomfort 
iv. The accents of order 
v. The accents of truth 
vi. The accents of existence 


C. General remarks on complexes 
D. The classification of complexes 
i. The sensible complexes 
ii. Thoughts 
iii. Feelings 
E. The analysis of will 
F, Summary 
3. The dynamics of inner mental life 
A. Association 
B. Limiting and directing agents 
C. On so-called reproduction 
D. The concept of my soul 
4, Summary 


XIV 


CONTENTS 


LE: PSYCHOPHYSICS 


sie 
ie 


3. 


My body 

The functional relation between 

body and mind 

Some particular problems of 

psychophysics 

A. Weber’s law 

B. Johannes Miiller’s law of 
“specific sense energy 


C. Sensations with a spatial 
characteristic 


D. Action 


. The “other Ego” 
. Mind and body 
A. The theory of psychomechanical 


parallelism 


B. Arguments and proofs against 
parallelism 
i. Memory images and 
originals compared 
ii. The recognition of the same 


85 
85 


90 


94 
95 


96 


98 
100 
105 
115 


115 


12] 


121 


in various absolute expressions 123 


iii. The insufficiency of the 
association theory 

iv. Action as a non-mechanical 
natural phenonenon 


v. The physical and the psychical 


compared 

(1) The general structural 
type in the physical and 
the psychical 


125 


126 


138 


140 


NUK 


LV 


CONTENTS 


(2) The degree of manifold- 
ness in the physical and 
the psychical world 

vi. Conclusions 

C. Appendix: A few notes on 
insanity 

D. Final remarks on the mind- 


and-body problem 


THE METAPHYSICS OF MIND 
THE ORGANIZATION OF MIND 


1; 


[As) 


Or 


Critical remarks 

A. Brentano and Husserl 

B. On so-called “understanding” 
psychology 


. The soul 


. The factors concerned in the 


acquisition of knowledge 


. Various forms of knowing 
. The dynamics of will 
. On certain modifications of 


mental life 
A. Terminology 
B. The meaning of the word 
“unconscious” 
C. Classification and description 
i. Dreams 
ii. Hypnosis 
(1) Physical phenomena 
(2) Psychophysical phe- 
nomena 
iii. Dissociation 


XV 


14] 
145 


149 


153 
158 
163 
164 
164 


167 
169 


175 
184 
188 


190 
190 


DOL 
193 
194 
199 


201 


202 
203 


XV1 


peg Aye Paseo aes 


CONTENTS 


. The causation of hypnosis and 
its essence 


. Co-consciousness 
. Subconsciousness 
. The essence of co-consciousness 


and subconsciousness 
. Summary 


. The role of the brain 
. Logical remarks 


V. PARAPSYCHOLOGY 
1. Classification 
2. Theory 


A. 
Bi 
C, 
Dy 
E. 


Generalities 

Physical phenomena 
Psychical phenomena 
Psychophysical phenomena 
Prophecy 


Vit THE PROBLEM OF FREEDOM 
VII. ., IMMORTALITY 


VIII. CON 


CLUSONS 


1. The crisis 
2. Problems unsolved 


INDEX 


205 
211 
214 


216 
218 
222 
226 
229 


230 
232 


232 
235 
236 
238 
241 


243 
253 


262 
262 
267 


273 


I. NORMAL PSYCHOLOGY 


1. THE SUBJECT OF PSYCHOLOGY 


OPULARLY speaking, psychology is the 
| Perea of the “coming and going” of the 
contents of my consciousness. But this popular 
definition is very objectionable; for neither is 
“consciousness” a well defined thing or object, 
nor is it something like a pot, “in” which there | 
might be something like a “content.” 

In order to define psychology accurately, we 
must start with a certain most fundamental 
statement upon which all philosophy (and 
science) rests, namely, the irreducible and in- 
explicable primordial fact: I have something 
consciously, or, in brief: I “know” something, 
knowing at the same time that I know,—scio me 
scire.* 

The full discussion of this primordial fact 
belongs to a system of philosophy. What in- 
terests us here, with respect to our purpose of 
defining psychology in an adequate way, is the 
undeniable fact that many of the somethings 


which I consciously have are marked by signs or 
1 Augustine. 


Q THE CRISIS IN PSYCHOLOGY 


accents (or however you may choose to describe 
what is indescribable) which mean or signify 
that they have already been had before. In this 
sense we used to speak, in popular phraseology, 
of remembrances or of memory-contents. All 
these somethings with the accent of “having 
already been had” or, in short, with the accent 
“before,” or, rather, the accents themselves, 
now form a long series according to the speci- 
ficity of the “before”: for one “before” is earlier 
than another “before.” The totality of this 
series, when taken as continuous, is called time. 

Psychology, then, is the theory of the variety 
of all the somethings which I may consciously 
have, and of the laws® which govern the sequence 
of these various somethings in time. 

We see at first glance that two different prob- 
lems are involved in this definition of psychol- 
ogy: the somethings themselves, and the sequence 
of the somethings. It is just as it is in chemistry, 
for instance, where you must first know the 
variety of the chemical substances, and may 
then study the laws controlling their change. 


2 The word “law” is taken here in a very wide sense and 
may be replaced by the term “form of order.” 


NORMAL PSYCHOLOGY 3 


We might speak of a psychological statics 
and a psychological dynamics as the two main 
parts of normal psychology. But we prefer to 
call the first part the theory of the materials. 
What is it that I consciously have or “pos- 
sess’? This must, of course, be the first question. 
Even here, at the very beginning, the revolu- 
tion inaugurated by modern psychology will 
confront us. 

A brief historical review will serve to explain 
what I mean: 

Until about 1900 there were, strange to say, 
two different kinds of psychology; the one “‘sci- 
entific’ and of so-called “universal validity,” 
the other made for the private use of each single 
philosopher, so to speak, at home. 

Official and scientific psychology was com- 
posed of psychophysics and the theory of asso- 
ciation, as established by the classical British 
authors. This psychology formed almost the 
whole content of the psychological text-books. 
The additional part of these text-books which 
dealt with the so-called “higher functions of the 
mind” not only was so poor that almost nobody 
cared to read it, but also was often in direct con- 


4 THE CRISIS IN PSYCHOLOGY 


tradiction with what had been established in the 
main chapters. 

The philosophers now felt most clearly, firstly, 
that the principle of association, though not 
wrong, certainly did not cover the whole field of 
psychical phenomena, and, secondly, that the 
“higher functions” had been discussed in quite 
an impossible way. It was for this reason that 
they made their “‘home”-psychology for private 
use. So it was with Leibniz, Wolff, Kant, Hegel, 
Schopenhauer and many others. Of course, this 
state of things was not very satisfactory, though 
it lasted a long time before it broke down. 

Three men share the honor of having first seen 
the impossibility of the psychology of their time: 
I. von Hartmann, Wm. James and H. Bergson. 
Modern normal psychology starts with them. 
But these writers were critics rather than build- 
ers; they saw the impossible, but did not yet 
clearly see the possible et necessarium. It was in 
the beginning of the present century that mod- 
ern normal psychology was really created as a 
complete science of universal validity and not 
merely as a scientific fragment like association 
psychology. By different roads the same end has 


NORMAL PSYCHOLOGY 5 


been reached: Kiilpe, Marbe and their followers 
began the analysis of so-called thinking and 
willing in an exact way, with the result that it 
was found, firstly, that the variety of the imme- 
diate conscious possessions was far greater than 
had been recognized before, and, secondly, that 
there exist directing causal agents or factors in 
psychical life just as in material life, as set forth 
in the study of biology. Besides this modern psy- 
chology of thinking and willing, there came into 
view several new systems and conceptions of . 
logic, established along different lines by Hus- 
serl, Rehmke and myself, which also made it 
quite evident that the variety within the some- 
thing which I consciously have is very great. 
The most important and, I may say, astonish- 
ing failure of the older and “classic” normal psy- 
chology had been the fact that it did not account 
for the meanings, the significances, in our psy- 
chical life, i.e., that which renders psychical life 
“psychical” or “‘spiritual’’ in the deeper sense. 
This was the reason for the strange fact we have 
mentioned, that there were two psychologies in 
the past. In fact, a psychology which does not 
explain meaning and significance in the single 


6 THE CRISIS IN PSYCHOLOGY 


acts of psychical life, and which does not take 
sufficient account of the enrichment of that life 
in meaning and significance during its progress 
in time, is a psychology that leaves unexplained 
the main points. The older psychology ex- 
plained neither the one nor the other. For the 
only conscious contents which it registered were 
so-called sensations and images, and its only law 
was the law of association, 1.e., a law formed in 
analogy to mechanics. 

In order to explain meaning and significance 
in its complex forms and in order to account for 
its increase in time, meaning and significance 
must already be among the elements of psychical 
contents; and direction can never be explained 
unless there be something that directs. Modern 
normal psychology has accomplished what had 
been omitted by the older classic psychology. 
We shall now show along what lines of analysis 
this was done. 


2. THE THEORY OF MATERIALS 
We have said already that psychology must 
begin with a theory of materials. That means 
that we must first find out what those somethings 








NORMAL PSYCHOLOGY xi 


are, which are consciously had or possessed. 
The laws of sequence will then be studied in dy- 
namic psychology afterwards. 

The very first glance at the something reveals 
the fact not only that it is almost always, if not, 
indeed, always, of a complex form, but also that 
the same kinds of elements occur in the various 
somethings again and again. The first part of a 
theory of materials will therefore be the theory | 
of psychical elements, the second part the theory 
of complexes. 

How can we discover elements and complexes? 


A. The Method 
The answer to this important question is that we 
discover psychical elements and complexes exclu- 
sively by what is generally called introspection. 
“Introspection” is not a very good word for this 
purpose, but there is no better one in English. 
In German I should say that we make such a dis- 
covery by Schauen or by a Schau. That means 
that we realize most consciously and critically 
what it is that we consciously possess, and, by 
doing so, know at the same time in a quite defini- 
tive way what the elements, the irreducibilities, 


8 THE CRISIS IN PSYCHOLOGY 


the indefinables are. For elements cannot be de- 
fined. Introspection in this sense, of course, re- 
lates only to what I consciously possess; it 
reveals the elemental objects of my “having.” 
This statement implies two others. It implies, 
firstly, that all psychology is, at least to begin 
with, my psychology, and that only figuratively 
have I used the word “‘we,” thus to refer to “other 
Egos”; the concept of the other Ego is a very 
difficult and complicated one that will be dis- 
cussed later in its proper place. The statement 
implies, secondly, that we have to deal with ob- 
jects of my “having,” and not with “‘states” or 
“conditions” or “properties” or “faculties” of 


the Ego. 


In this sense our theory of elements stands in 
close relationship with a certain division of logic, 
namely the theory of order or the theory of ob- 
jects (Gegenstandslehre—Meinong, Husserl). 
But it differs from logic in so far as the objects 
which are consciously had or possessed are con- 
sidered in the introductory part of psychology 
only in so far as they are consciously possessed 
by the J, and not, as in logic, as objects in their 


NORMAL PSYCHOLOGY 9 


mere objectivity, nor as objects “tas such.” There 
will be found, for instance, elemental objects 
such as green, the meaning, relation; the mean- 
ing, nwmber. Logic reflects upon these meanings 
as such, in every respect, while the interest of the 
theory of elements, as an introductory part of 
psychology, simply consists in stating that so 
many and such-and-such elements of objects are 
elements with regard to my consciously having. 

The school of so-called behaviorism denies in- 
trospection. Also, many behaviorists even go so 
far as to maintain that “sensations” are the only 
objects of my consciously ‘“‘having.” They do 
not see how great is the variety of objects that 
we shall describe later on. While this book will 
avoid all polemics as far as possible, a few words 
with regard to behaviorism may, nevertheless, be 
allowed. We omit to consider here the second of 
the positions above mentioned, because by our 
own theory of elements this position will be de- 
nied implicitly. Let me, then, only make the fol- 
lowing criticism: Even if the behaviorists were 
right in saying that the only class of conscious 
objects are sensations, this very statement would 
itself be the result of “introspection”! And, 


10 THE CRISIS IN PSYCHOLOGY 


further, to what class of objects belongs the 
truth of the behavioristic theory itself, that 
there is nothing but sensations? Is this specific 
truth itself a sensation? The behaviorists would 
hardly dare assert that it is, I fancy. So we may 
say, in short, that the behaviorist forgets him- 
self in his psychological theory. Behaviorism is 
a good method,—nay, the only method—in ani- 
mal psychology; indeed, in this part of psy- 
chology, all knowledge that is really “psycho- 
logical” can be acquired only indirectly, never 
directly, for the movements of the body are the 
only things that are given immediately. But in 
what we may call the first, the original psychol- 
ogy, 1e., my psychology, conditions are, fortu- 
nately, different. Andit for this reason that all 
other psychologies, the psychology of the other 
Ego, of animals, of instincts, etc., must go back 
to the first psychology as their very foundation. 
Not to use introspection in “my” psychology 
would be to proceed as if I always made use of a 
mirror in order to see what I might see directly 
—or even worse! 

But what about the experiment, in modern 


NORMAL PSYCHOLOGY 11 


psychology, of thinking and willing, as applied 
in the school of Kiilpe? Does it not show that 
another method besides introspection is possible, 
and therefore preferable? By no means. For the 
so-called experiment is no proper “experiment” 
in this case. The experiment consists here only 
in a directing of the introspection of the “Ver- 
suchperson,” and is nothing else, the concept 
of the other Ego being admitted as a legitimate 
concept in a provisional way. One instance will 
suffice: I read to the Versuchperson an aphorism 
of Nietzsche and suggest that he reflect upon 
what he consciously has, firstly, while he under- 
stands its meaning, secondly, while he judges 
about this meaning, whether it be true or not, 
thirdly, while he compares it with a similar 
dictum of Goethe. The Versuchperson then 


> and a 


writes down an account of his “having,” 
number of the minutes thus written are material 
to be analysed by the psychologists. But who is 
the proper investigator in this case? No doubt, 
in the first place, the Versuchperson himself ! 
We are now well prepared to enter the halls of 


a proper and complete theory of elements. 


12 THE CRISIS IN PSYCHOLOGY 


B. The Theory of Elements 

i. The pure qualities or suchnesses. 
Here I am only able to say: I have consciously 
such, and such, and such an element: Green, cold, 
red, hard, the musical term “do,” white, sweet, etc. 
We must not think of physics in this primordial 
part of psychology: white and black are as ele- 
mental as red and green. We must also not think 
of sense organs; psychology does not know any- 
thing about “sense organs” in the beginning; it 
quite simply studies the elements which compose 
the somethings which Iimmediately or conscious- 
ly have or possess. We therefore avoid calling 
our pure suchnesses or qualities “sensations.” 

But we may say a few words about certain pecu- 
liarities connected with various pure suchnesses. 
In the first place they form groups among them- 
selves: the colors, the tones, the smells, etc. Then, 
there is a good deal to say about the relations 
which exist among the members of each group: 
so-called color-geometry and the theory of mu- 
sical harmony belong here; but this belongs more 
to logic, in the larger sense, than to the theory 
of materials as a part of psychology, though it 


NORMAL PSYCHOLOGY 13 


is customary to deal with the subject in psycho- 
logical text-books. 

More important for special psychological 
purposes is the fact that each group of such- 
nesses bears in itself some very strange charac- 
teristics, among which we shall mention the most 


are “in 


important ones: Colors are ‘‘outside,’ 
space.” This is quite elemental. Colors, for this 
very reason, provide most of the material out of 
which the concept of an object of nature is 
formed in logic. 

We omit the peculiarities of tones, smells, 
tastes, etc., and say only a few words about the 
specific characteristics of those qualities which 
are generally known under the names of “‘body- 
sensations” and which, physiologically, used to 
be referred to the skin, the joints, the muscles, etc. 
We, of course, take them simply as specific ele- 
mental suchnesses. But then we find that they are 
all related to a very strange complex totality; 
that they occupy a specific place in this totality ; 
that they bear on themselves a specific local-. 
accent (“Lokal-Zeichen”—Lotze) with respect 
to it. The “totality” we mean is the one on the 


14 THE CRISIS IN PSYCHOLOGY 


foundation of which the important concept of 
my body will be erected later on. 


i. Data with regard to space and tume 


The quasi-quality spatial and the accent of be- 
fore are here in question. The two members of this 
group are united only asa matter of convenience. 

What “spatial” or “‘near* to” means is ele- 
mental, because it is indefinable. Spatiality is 
quite immediately possessed, together with its 
continuity and its three dimensions (the dimen- 
sion of depth probably being experienced in the 
kinesthetic way exclusively and not by sight). 

But a corresponding continuous something, 
‘‘time,” is not immediately given. The conception 
of time as a quasi-line is very misleading, as 
Bergson was the first to see. To put it in my own 
terms, as has already been done before :* What is 
immediately present in many somethings is an 
accent of before (or after), always specific, one 


3In the general meaning of the word of course, corre- 
sponding to the German “neben”; not as the opposite to 
“far from.” 


4 See p. 2. 


NORMAL PSYCHOLOGY 15 


“before” being earlier than another. On the 
foundation of the totality of the before-accents 
the concept of continuous time is then formed as 
a theoretical concept. But this belongs to logic, 
and we, as psychologists, have nothing to do but 
to register near to and before as elemental ma- 
terials put together in one group for practical 
reasons only. 


u1. Pleasure and discomfort 

Pleasure and discomfort enter as elements into 
all those complex psychical contents which are 
generally called feelings. They are like ++ and 
—, though not in the sense of mere quantities, 
but corresponding more to positive and negative 


> as 


electrons. They are not “states of the Ego,’ 
one often finds it asserted, but are objects to 
the Ego, just like green, etc. The reason for this 
wrong opinion seems to be the fact that logic 
never relates feelings to objects of nature, and 
that feelings are not among the immediate ma- 
terials of which the concept of a natural object 
is formed. Feelings, popularly stated, are “sub- 


jective.” But, even then, they are somethings, 


16 THE CRISIS IN PSYCHOLOGY 


consciously possessed by the Ego. Pain, by the 
way, is not a feeling, but a pure quality with a 
strong accent of discomfort. 


iv. The accents of order 

We now come to the first topic of modern psy- 
chology which may fittingly be called revolution- 
ary. We have said that psychical life is full of 
meaning, of significance,’ of sense, and that this 
very feature has been overlooked by the classic 
psychology, or, at least, has not been appro- 
priately treated by it. Meaning, we have said, 
must already be among the psychical elements, 
in order that the actual complex meanings which 
we consciously have may be understood and ex- 
plained. Here, then, we meet the first group of 
elemental meanings : 

It is the irreducible and indefinable logical 
concepts that here stand in question,—signifi- 
cances like this, such, not, related, so many, be- 
cause, whole and part, order. I have all these 
meanings as objects, just as I have green, sweet, 
pleasure, before. Of course, these significances 


5 In German, “Bedeutung” or “Sinn.” 


NORMAL PSYCHOLOGY 17 


are not “sensible,” not “anschaulich,” to use the 
untranslatable German word, but, nevertheless, 
they are objects of my “having.” 

They are objects for me, like all objects; they 
are not “properties” of the “mind.’’ We do not 
even know yet what these latter are, either a 
“property” or a “mind.” I merely consciously 
have something in an order. That is all and re- 
mains all. And among the somethings that I 
“have” are those elemental significances which 
are so-called “abstract” or wnanschaulich ob- 
jects. They and they alone are the real primor- 
dial “categories.” The theory of the categories 
is therefore, not as Kant believes, an analysis of 
pure intelligence,” but the most primordial 
branch of the theory of objects of order. 
For our psychological purposes, of course, all 
elemental significances come into account, not 
insofar as their meaning as such is in question, 
but only insofar as they are consciously pos- 
sessed; not the meaning “related”? stands in 
question, but the elemental fact, I have the sig- 
nificance “‘related.”’ 


6“4nalyse des reiner Verstandes.”’ 


18 THE CRISIS IN PSYCHOLOGY 


v. The accents of truth 

But there are more “abstract” significances 
which are consciously possessed, besides the logi- | 
cal elementals. There are also, so to speak, ac- 
cents of meaning. We now study the first group 
of these, which we propose to call the accents of 
the group of truth. 

I say to you: V/a.b = V/a‘\b, or I explain 
to you the doctrine of Pythagoras. You under- 
stand what I have said and say “all right.” That 
means that the two contents just mentioned have 
the accent of being in order, of being final with 
regard to order, of being “‘true.’”’ 

If I had said, \/a.b = \/a + Vb, this state- 
ment would have had the accent of “being not 
in order,” of “being wrong.” 

And the statement ‘*There are manlike beings 
on the planet Mars” has the accent of perhaps, 
of “maybe.” 

But there are still other accents similar to 
those mentioned, and therefore put together 


with them into the same group. 

7 In my system of philosophy I reserve the words “true” 
or “truth” for metaphysical statements, and speak of 
“correct” or “correctness” (Berichtigkeit in German) in 
the realm of the theory of order. 


NORMAL PSYCHOLOGY 19 


Think again of the two mathematical in- 
stances: \/a.b == \/a.\/b and the doctrine of 
Pythagoras. To many of us these two state- 
ments have not only the accent of finality, as we 
may briefly put it, but possess still another 
accent, namely, the accent of “being already 
known,” of “being an old story” or, more tech- 
nically, of being settled.® 

Ho6ffding was the first to see the point in ques- 
tion, but what he saw under the expression of a 
“quality of being known,” or “Bekanntheits- 
qualitdt,” covers only part of the field. Hoffding 
did realize that most of the so-called percep- 
tions, at least for adult persons, are not per- 
ceptions in the strictest and simplest sense, but 
recognitions, 1e., perceptions with an accent. 
But this holds also for very “abstract” contents 
and by no means for perceptions exclusively. 

Of course, as in the whole theory of elemental 
materials, we have to do here with objects, with 
somethings which I consciously have, and this 
means with “states of the Ego.” 

The concept of the accent of being settled may 


8In German I say “Endgiiltigverzeichen” for the accent 
of finality, “Hrledigungszeichen” for the accent of being 
settled. 


290 THE CRISIS IN PSYCHOLOGY 


be still further subdivided. A content A may bear 
the accent of being settled or known itself, or the 
accents that something else which is necessary in 
order to understand A is settled; but we shall 
not discuss this point in detail here.° 

The accent settled is very important for the 
old and famous problem of a classification of the 
sciences. Take, for instance, the science of bi- 
ology. It implies that physics is settled; this in 
turn implies the being-settled of geometry; this, 
in its turn, of arithmetic, and arithmetic, in 
turn, of pure formal logic. Or take as another 
instance the principle of the parallelogram of 
forces: here the meaning of “parallelogram”’ is 
settled; in it, the meaning of ‘*4’’; in four, the 
meaning of “this is not non-this,” etc. 

Thus the concept of being settled penetrates 
logic and for this reason also the whole psy- 
chical life. 


vi. The accents of existence 

This is the third group of elemental abstract 
meanings and quite the last group of the ele- 
mental materials of psychology. I shall speak of 


9 Ordnungslehre, 2nd edit., p. 53. 


NORMAL PSYCHOLOGY 21 


accents of existence or, more fully, of the sphere 
of existence. 

To show what I mean by this word: Think 
what the word “‘cat” signifies, as used in every 
day life, with respect to the general character- 
istics of such an animal, i.e., with reference to its 
mere outlines, but not to its anatomy or physi- 
ology. Now the complex object “cat”? may have 
various accents of existence. Thus, if I say, 
“Took at this cat,” this means a cat with the 
accent of “belonging to empirical reality, to na- 
ture.” If I say, “I dreamt of a cat last night,” 
there is the accent of belonging to the sphere of 
dreams. “Remember that cat,” the accent of 
memory images. “‘Imagine a cat,” accent of mere 
phantasms, etc. 

The ‘‘Puss in Boots” also has a special accent 
of existence, and one other than that of another 
cat in another fairy tale. So, also, ‘Richard 
Ill” has one accent as the King of England 
studied in history, and another accent as a per- 
son in Shakespeare’s play. 

So much about the elemental materials of 
which everything is composed which I may pos- 
sess or have consciously. Our enumeration is 


22 THE CRISIS IN PSYCHOLOGY 


most probably not complete; there are doubtless 
more than just six groups of elemental ma- 
terials. But the number is immaterial and un- 
important in view of what this book takes as 
its aims. 


C. General Remarks on Complexes 
Elements qua elements are probably never pos- 
sessed consciously. It even seems as if every psy- 
chical content were made up by at least one 
element of each of the six groups enumerated. 

Think, for instance, of a circular figure of red 
color; this is, in fact, a very simple content. And 
yet you experience, firstly, the quality red; 
secondly, spatiality; thirdly, you enjoy, very 
slightly perhaps, color and form; fourthly, the 
figure you see is a such and not a non-such; 
fifthly, you know it already; and sixthly, it ex- 
ists only in your imagination. 

Thus we have everything we want. Some of the 
accents may be very feeble, but they are found 
to be present, if only we look closely. 

If, then, all complex contents in psychical life 
are of the same form of complexity at bottom, 
how can we classify those complexes, as is done 


NORMAL PSYCHOLOGY 23 


in every text-book of psychology? We classify 
according to the principle of a potiori, i.e., ac- 
cording to the prevailing element. But in the last 
resort we must never forget that a perception is 
also a feeling and a thought,—a thought is never 
quite free of feeling and perceiving, etc. 

But there are other much graver difficulties 
that face us when we approach the theory of 
complex contents, and it is with these fundamen- 
tal difficulties that we must deal first of all. 

We have said just above that probably every 
single psychical content will be found to contain 
at least one element of each of the six fundamen- 
tal groups, “if only we look closely.” What does 
this mean? Does it not seem to suggest that the 
psychical contents have a sort of independent 
existence besides that of being consciously had? 
And have we not said, on the other hand, that 
“somethings” are only insofar as they are con- 
sciously had or possessed? But here still another 
difficulty arises. I always “Shave” consciously 
what I have. But having a feeling, for instance, 
is not analysing it; in order to analyse it, I must 
have, not the feeling, but my having my feeling. 
This can only occur by a new special “act” 


24 THE CRISIS IN PSYCHOLOGY 


afterwards. How, then, can I know what I have 
had, and what does it mean, when I say that 
“what I have had” is possibly something other 
than what I thought it to be before? This, in 
fact, is a paradox and a great difficulty. In any 
case we are forced to say that it looks as if the 
psychical contents had their proper independent 
existence; in any case they are implicitly re- 
garded in such a way. 

Strictly speaking the situation seems to me to 
be as follows: I want to analyse, say, a special 
case of a hoping,—for instance, the hope that 
my child will recover from illness. I have this case 
of hoping several times, speaking in the popular 
phraseology, and now I discover more and more 
details in it, as time advances. To put it cor- 
rectly, each “Shope” was another hope, was an- 
other something I had, and only in a very com- 
plicated hypothetic sense am I entitled to say 
that there was always the same hope, which was 
confusément apper¢u at first, to use a phrase of 
Bergson’s, and clearly conceived in all its details 
only at the end. But the hypothesis may be 
admitted for the sake of brevity, though it im- 
plies a certain metaphysical statement, if not 


NORMAL PSYCHOLOGY 25 


even paradox, that I have had a something which 
I did not “have.”’ Perhaps we might better say 
“that I might have already had the first time, 
had I given my full attention to the analysis.” 

But now a new difficulty arises, which was 
first seen by Bergson. I never can have the very 
same content a second or third time, because, by 
its having been had already, it is made different 
from what it was the first time! For the second | 
or any subsequent time, that content carries in 
itself two accents: one of before and another of 
already known, which it did not carry when it 
was possessed first. Thus every content is exclu- 
sively what it is and there cannot be two quite 
identical contents. 

Our theory of accents acquires its greatest 
importance here. What I consciously possess in 
the now bears an enormous number of accents of 
two different kinds. Firstly, it embraces, in the 
form of accents of being settled, everything 
which I have had before with regard to its con- 
tent; and, secondly, it refers to all accents of 
the form before. Each accent enters into the 
other. 

It seems a paradox, but it is none the less 


26 THE CRISIS IN PSYCHOLOGY 


true, that in the now I always have implicitly 
my whole former psychical life. There is not a 
temporal continuity in my “having,” as we shall 
see later on; but there is a continuity or pene- 
tration of contents. This is what Bergson calls 
durée, it seems to me. 

But does not psychology become absolutely 
helpless in the face of these astonishing facts? 
Are its general conditions not far more full of 
difficulties than those of the sciences of nature? 
For in spatial nature every single state or event 
differs from every other only insofar as each 
occupies its special locality in space and time, 
while in psychical life every content is only itself 
with regard to quality. 

It is true, psychology can only save itself by 
strenuous methods, if it wants to classify its 
complex psychical contents. At present it dis- 
regards the various accents of before and being 
settled; it does not take them into account. Yet 
only if this is done is the way open for classifi- 
cation; we must, however, remember what we 
said above, namely, that nothing but a classifi- 
cation a potiori is possible. 


a 


NORMAL PSYCHOLOGY Q7 


D. The Classification of Complexes 

Let us, then, begin to work out a classification of 
complex psychical somethings. We do not intend 
to go very deeply into details in this chapter, but 
shall mention only what is either important with 
respect to later parts of this book, or what 
serves to reveal to us the very essence of mod- 
ern normal psychology and its difference from 
earlier psychological doctrines. 


1. The sensible complexes 

Sensibility’ prevails in the complex contents 
in question. We used to speak of “sensations” 
and “perceptions” as well as of “images.” The 
images may belong to the sphere of dreams, of 
memory, or of phantasy. But the sphere to 
which they belong is a matter of no importance 
to the main outlines of the classification, for, as 
regards this, they are considered only with re- 
10I cannot find a better English word for the German 
Anschaulichkeit, Of course we must not think of senses 
or sense organs, which are assumed to be not yet known 
to us in this part of psychology, where we are doing noth- 


ing but analyse what I consciously have in its immediate- 
ness. 


28 THE CRISIS IN PSYCHOLOGY 


spect to what they are in their very immediate- 
ness, i.e., in their being consciously possessed. In 
this respect a perceived horse and a dreamt horse 
and a remembered horse may be the same horse 
with regard to “sensibility,” only the accents 
of existence” being different. We may fall into 
error occasionally with respect to these accents, 
—in the moment of waking up, for example, or 
when suffering from hallucinations. But this 
problem belongs to the theory of knowledge, 
and not to psychology. 

But there is another difference among com- 
plexes in which sensibility prevails that is of 
greater importance for classification than the 
question of accents of existence. This is the dif- 
ference between shadow-like and body-like’” 
sensible contents, a difference which may be most 
easily understood by saying that the former 
look like a black-and-white drawing, the latter 
like a bit of colored sculpture. 

Sensible contents with the accent of belonging 
to empirical reality are always body-like; they 
11 See page 21. Husserl would speak of “regionale Kate- 


gorien’ in this case, 
12 “Leibhaftig”’ in German. 


NORMAL PSYCHOLOGY 29 


are called perceptions in the restricted sense of 
the word. 

Contents of a hallucinatory character may be 
either body-like or shadow-like. 

Dream contents are almost always body-like. 

Phantasy and memory contents, i.e., “images” 
in the restricted sense, are generally shadow-like, 
at least in adults, but usually body-like in artists 
and, as Taeusch has discovered, in young people 
until about the fifteenth year. 

To sum up the most important points: There 
are two phenomenological differences among 
sensibilities, the one relating to the general sen- 
sible habitus, the other to the accent of existence. 
With regard to sensibility as such, the first of 
these comes into account only as shadow-like or 
body-like. The second difference has to do with 
something that is not sensible, but only con- 
nected with sensibility. These differences are in- 
dependent of each other. For the sensible char- 
acter of a body-like sensibility as such does not 
tell us by itself whether we possess a perception, 
a hallucination, a dream image, or a memory 
image. The accent must be made out by a rather 
complicated process belonging to the co-called 


30 THE CRISIS IN PSYCHOLOGY 


theory of knowledge, namely, by reflecting upon 
the relations in which the content in question 
stands to other contents. The accent belongs to 
one of the group of elemental meanings of an 
“abstract” character. It never fails to exist. 
Thus we see that the sensible is never without 
the non-sensible. This proves our statement that 
all classification of complex-psychical some- 
things is only a classification a potiort. 


The following table sums it all up: 


1. Body-like sensibilities: 
a with accent perception 
b with accent dream wage 
c with accent hallucination 
d with accent memory image 
e with accent phantasy image 


2. Shadow-like sensibilities : 
a with accent hallucination 
b with accent memory image 
c with accent phantasy image 


A certain variety among memory images may 
be mentioned: memory images may have the 


NORMAL PSYCHOLOGY 31 


general indefinite accent before or the definite 
accent at that point of the past. The phantasy 
image has no time accent. 


i. Thoughts 

By the word thought we shall denominate 
those conscious somethings the elemental consti- 
tuents of which are to a great extent or almost 
exclusively of the type of so-called “abstract” 
nature, ie., strictly speaking, meanings or 
significances. 

What I mean when speaking of a dog, a table, 
or a pen is something that contains already a 
good many “abstract”? elements, for I cannot 
have a thing in the form of a mere sensibility ; 
thing-ness, so to speak, is nothing sensible, but 
a meaning. Thus things, as somethings which are 
possessed consciously, stand, as it were, midway 
between sensibilities and thoughts. 

Pure thoughts are generally complexes of 
relations and meanings of the most various 
kind. Keep in your mind the complex something: 
“Ffume’s philosophical system” or, more com- 
plex still, **The difference between the systems 
of Kant and Hume.” These are instances of 


32 THE CRISIS IN PSYCHOLOGY 


thoughts, i.e., of somethings which consist al- 
most completely of elements which are not of 
sensible nature, and are not feelings. They con- 
sist exclusively of meanings of order and of 
various sorts of accents, it seems. 

“It seems”—here we come into contact with 
a problem recognized by Aristotle. Are there 
thoughts which are absolutely free from any- 
thing sensible? That is the question much dis- 
cussed nowadays in the school of Kiilpe. Of 
course, different Egos—to use the popular term 
—may vary in this respect. My personal opinion 
is that there exists in every case what I might 
call the sensible bearer*®’ of a thought, but that 
this bearer is not a fixed and definite one for 
every sort of thought, and that anything sensi- 
ble may “bear” anything abstract. If, for in- 
stance, I am thinking of ‘‘Nietzsche’s philoso- 
phy” I find that I either have the letter N before 
my optical phantasy, or that my fingers move a 
little as if they were to write N, or that my lips 
are moving correspondingly, etc. But this is all. 
Any optical or kinesthetic or acoustical bearer 
may support a thought. This bearer is, however, 


13 “Trdger’ in German. 


NORMAL PSYCHOLOGY 33 


of no importance at all for the main thing in 
question; only it must not be missing. We may 
speak of an all-too-human restriction in this 
case and may refer briefly to Bergson’s state- 
ment that numbers, or, strictly speaking, so 
many’s, cannot be possessed consciously with- 
out some spatial foundation in the form of 
points, lines, etc., though the meaning of so 
many has nothing to do with space at all. 


ii. Feelings. 

Let us first remark once more™ that feelings 
are not “states” of the Ego, but somethings or 
objects which I consciously have. They may indi- 
cate states of the mind or soul; but mind and 
soul are terms which we do not yet well know; in 
any case they do not mean the same as the words 
I or Ego. 

Feelings are thoughts with a strong and pre- 
vailing accent of one of the elements pleasure 
or discomfort. They may be classified, but the 
classification relates to their substantial nucleus 
exclusively, 1.e., to the complex thought-contents 
to which pleasure or discomfort is attached, the 
14 Cf, p. 8. 


384 THE CRISIS IN PSYCHOLOGY 


pleasure and discomfort as such being always 
the same. Feelings have a certain intensity which 
will become important in the theory of will. But 
it is not merely this intensity that comes into 
account in the sphere of this theory, but some- 
thing else as well, namely, that which has been 
called depth or weight (Kriiger), and which in 
my own terminology would be best styled the 
accent of being in order, or, of finality. When- 
ever there is any sort of competition of different 
feelings with regard to their determining so- 
called ‘‘will,” the intensity of one feeling may 
act in competition with the finality of the other, 
say, ina moral respect. The intensity is attached 
to the accent of elemental pleasure or discom- 
fort, the accent of finality to the substantial 
nucleus or to one of its parts. 

The whole theory of feelings is still, however, 
in a very unsettled and provisional state. We 
therefore omit details here and proceed to the 
analysis of one very important complex some- 
thing which stands in the middle ground between 
feeling and thought, and which is regarded as a 
special class of somethings by many authors: will, 
The analysis of will is to form the next section 


NORMAL PSYCHOLOGY 35 


of this chapter. It will imply very many impor- 
tant problems of a general kind and may serve 
at the same time as a good instance of what a 
proper analysis of a complex something ought 
to be. 


EK. The Analysis of Will 

We shall analyse will as a something that is 
consciously had, and not as a “faculty” or ~ 
property of the “mind,” also not as an active 
“conscious process” starting from the Ego. At 
least we do not know, at the very start, whether 
there exists any such thing as a “conscious pro- 
cess.”” We simply analyse into its elements what 
I consciously have when I will. That is the whole 
task. 

Suppose I will to write a letter, say, a very 
important letter, but one which is not very 
pleasant but rather disagreeable to write. But 
it must be written. What do I have while I am 
“willing” to write? 

I have consciously, while having the will to 
write: 

Firstly: What may be called a substantial 
nucleus of the form, written letter. This is a 


386 THE CRISIS IN PSYCHOLOGY 


thought with a good many sensible elements in 
it; I may even “see” something like a written 
letter in my imagination. 

Secondly: The nucleus “written letter” carries 
varied accents. Thus, it exists now only in my 
imagination, and this is rather wnpleasant. But 
later it will be real, in the empirical sense, and 
that will be pleasant. Here are six accents alto- 
gether or, rather, twice three. The words denot- 
ing the accents are printed in italics. We see that 
the accents are of time, of feeling and of the 
sphere of existence. The six accents are present 
at once, penetrating one another in an almost 
inexpressible way. Sometimes one accent is in the 
foreground, sometimes another. But all six are 
always present, to a certain extent at least. 

So far we have analysed not will, but wish. 
The analysis given up to this point may, in fact, 
be called the analysis of wish, if only we notice 
that in this case an accent of perhaps must be 
added: perhaps the wish is to be fulfilled, per- 
haps it is not. We may now continue our analy- 
sis of will: 

Thirdly: It is I who wills. The accent of I is 


strong. 


NORMAL PSYCHOLOGY 37 


Fourthly: There is some kinesthetic sensation, 
say, in my hand, as if I were already beginning 
to write. Such a sensation probably never fails 
to exist, but is as immaterial to the main point as 
the bearer of a thought, discussed in a former 
paragraph. 

But now we come to the main points, Le., to 
those constituents of the complex in question 
which may properly be said to form the very 
essence of will: 

Fifthly: I will, and I know that I can. Who is 
the one who can? Correctly stated not I, but my 
body, my hand for example. Jt can and I know 
that it can. 

To put it in strictly technical terms: I know 
with the accent of being settled that my body is 
able to play an important causal part in the 
(empirical) realization of the nucleus of my will. 

Here we have the point which sharply sepa- 
rates will from wish: I cannot “will” to fly to 
Mars, but can only wish it, because I have the 
final knowledge that my body is not able “to 
plan an important causal part in the realization 
of the nucleus” in question. 


Siathly: What I will, owght to be done. The 


88 THE CRISIS IN PSYCHOLOGY 


content of my willing has an accent of the class 
of being in order. This accent may be very 
strong in so-called moral or ethical willing. But 
we never miss it, though it may often be rather 
unimportant in any ethical respect. I approve, 
we may also_say, the content of my will. The 
approving may be the result of a conflict, of a 
competition of feelings; this point belongs to 
genetic psychology and does not interest us here, 
where we are only discussing the materials. In 
any case I have the “approving” whenever I will, 
from whatever source it may come genetically. 

So far we have analysed will as the prerequi- 
site of action. This may be called centrifugal 
will. But there exists inner or centripetal will 
also. I may will to be attentive, to remember 
something, to utter a name, to solve a problem. 
In this case everything is the same as in our 
analysis of centrifugal will, except that some 
terms have to be changed. These are combined 
in the phenomenon of “inner will.” There are: 

Firstly: The nucleus, i.e., the idea of “my con- 
sciously having attention, or the name, or the 
solution.” 

Secondly: Six accents of time, sphere of exist- 


NORMAL PSYCHOLOGY 39 


ence and feeling, 1.e., the nucleus is at present 
merely vague and this is unpleasant, but it will 
be in the future a clear conscious something and 
this will be pleasant. 

Thirdly: It is I who wills. 

Fourthly: Kinesthetic sensations, perhaps in 
the skin of the face. 

Fifthly: I will and I can. Who “can”? Not I 
in the proper sense, but a something yet unknown 
(afterwards to be called my mind). I know that 
my mind is able to transform the nucleus into 
the clear conscious state. 

Sixthly: The nucleus ought to stand con- 
sciously before me. 

Thus we have finished our analysis of willing. 
We now know what we have found. But more 
important, perhaps, is what we have not found! 

In the analysis of will as well as of thought we 
did not find any element of conscious activity, of 
doing, even of becoming. We found, so to speak, 
only static elements in a something that was 
had or possessed, that was “object.” 

We are, then, not allowed to say: I will and J 
do, but: I will and it happens or, if you like it 
better, I will and my body (my mind) acts, or 


40 THE CRISIS IN PSYCHOLOGY 


moves, or does. With respect to consciousness 
there is a gap between my willing and the doing 
of my body or my (unconscious) mind. This was 
seen by Hume. 

What holds good for willing in the restricted 
sense also holds good for so-called thinking, for 
‘reflecting’ about something, etc. Please note 
well that we have not once made use of the verb 
to “think,” but only the expression ‘‘I have a 
thought.” 

Willing and thinking as conscious activities 
do not exist. They occur neither among the ele- 
mental nor among the complex materials of 
conscious life. 

Let us add still a few words about what is 
popularly called thinking or reflecting ‘‘over” 
something (nachdenken in German). What do I 
consciously have in this case, say, if “I reflect” 
over the solution of a mathematical equation of 
the second degree? 

I have a good many things, one after the 
other, in this case, but “I? do not “‘make” the 
second out of the first: 

At the beginning I have the equation as it 
stands in the book, implying its meaning. Almost 


NORMAL PSYCHOLOGY 41 


at the same time I have the general scheme of 
the solution of such equations: 


Q 4 


Then comes the scheme of transformation: the 
equation must be brought into the form: 
vtar+b—0. 

All this forms the starting point. And then J 
“do” absolutely nothing, but “it” does and puts 
before me what it has done. And now “it comes 
to me” (“es fallt mir ein,” as we say in German) 
that a certain transformation of the original 
equation is possible, say by division, which brings 
it nearer to the standard form. I do nothing 
again; but “it comes” again, and so on, until 
finally a and b have their definite values. The 
empty schema is no longer a mere schema but the 
solution. 

We shall come back to this problem in detail 
later on. Let me, then, only say at this point: 
“Thinking over something” is not a conscious 
doing, but is a “having” of a sequence of some- 
things in the run of time each of which is richer 
in finality with regard to the task to be solved 


42 THE CRISIS IN PSYCHOLOGY 


than its antecedent. So it is at least if “all goes 


well,” 


F. Summary 
If we look back upon our theory of psychic ma- 
terials, we find that it differs fundamentally 
from almost all earlier psychological systems in 
two different respects: 

Firstly : Meaning, which had been overlooked 
in its objective character in almost all former 
systems, has got its proper place in the theory 
of elements: I have consciously various forms of 
meaning or significance just as I have “green” 
or the note “re.” For this reason our psychology 
will not fail to explain the very complex mean- 
ings of which our whole conscious life consists. 

Secondly: We do not speak of a conscious 
activity, which had been regarded as a self- 
evident fact by earlier psychologists. No such 
activity exists! Psychical doing, becoming, per- 
forming, and, therefore, thinking and willing 
also, taken as processes, do not belong to the 
conscious sphere. 

But where, then, do they belong? 

The raising of this important problem leads 


NORMAL PSYCHOLOGY 43 


us to the next section of our book, in which we 
shall discuss the laws which the temporal se- 
quence of the somethings which I consciously 
have really obeys. 


3, THE DYNAMICS OF INNER MENTAL LIFE 
The problem we have now to discuss is this: 

Given a sequence in time of somethings con- 
sciously possessed by the I or the Ego,*® what 
forms of order are to be discovered among these 
somethings with regard to their temporal se- 
quence? In what way can that which happens be 
understood by analogy to causality in nature, 
1.e., in such a way that what is or happens now 
has, as it were, its sufficient reason in what has 
happened or been before? 

Causal conception of the temporal sequence 
of conscious contents would be a rather easy 
matter if the connection between a content A 
and the next content B were itself consciously 
possessed as a causal, a dynamic, connection, 


15 I prefer to say “by the I” because the term, go, may 
suggest something like a theory or substance which is not 
at all in question here. “TI” in its strict sense, ought not to 
be subjected to declination! 


44 THE CRISIS IN PSYCHOLOGY 


if I were making B out of A, and if I consciously 
knew about my doing so. But this, we have seen, 
is not the case. My consciously having is static, 
not dynamic. I merely have consciously. This, in 
fact, is all. I do not “do” consciously. 

It follows from this that causal connections 
between the various conscious contents succeed- 
ing one another in time are not immediately 
possessed by the Ego, but are only meant, as if 
they existed independently, in just the same 
way in which forces, affinities, energies in nature 
are “meant” as quasi-existing, but are not im- 
mediately known in the way in which I know 
about the “materials,” elemental or complex, 
which we have studied in the preceding sections. 
Causal psychology, in fact, has a great simi- 
larity to natural science from the logical point 
of view, and all the concepts which will play a 
part on the following pages of this book may be 
compared with such concepts as potential en- 
ergy, embryonic potency, electric potential, etc., 
but not with will, feeling, and thought, as here- 
tofore described. This will be clearer as our dis- 
cussion proceeds. 


We now begin our analysis proper. This an- 


OOOO EE a 


NORMAL PSYCHOLOGY 45 


alysis, at first, will consider only the temporal 
sequence of such conscious somethings as belong 
to what is generally called inner psychical life, 
namely, to the so-called stream of consciousness, 
including images, thoughts, feelings, willings, 
etc. At first we shall not have to do with so-called 
sensations and perceptions, i.e., with what comes 
to us through the senses, to put it in popular 
language. 

This also is one of the points in which mod- 
ern psychology differs widely from the older 
psychology. The older psychology, almost al- 
ways, was established on the foundation of a 
naive realism, i.e., of a primitive and popular 
metaphysics, which, without any criticism or 


99 66 


analysis, regarded “mind,” ‘“‘body,” ‘‘senses,” 


” “other conscious Egos,” etc., 


“sense organs, 
as being, or, as existing. 

Our psychology does not know, at the begin- 
ning, what all these terms mean. It knows only 
that I have consciously something and that I 
have different somethings in the sequence of 
time. For this alone is quite beyond doubt. And 
it also is beyond doubt that there are a good 
many sequences of conscious somethings which 


46 THE CRISIS IN PSYCHOLOGY 


do not need any reference to what is popularly 
called “body,” ‘“‘sense organ,” etc. It is the total- 
ity of such sequences which we call “human psy- 
chical life.” 

We have made use of the popular expression, 
a “stream of consciousness.” The expression, of 
course, is not quite correct. For, as our theory 
of materials has shown us, there is no such 
stream. I now have this content, and then that, 
and then that, etc. But I have nothing between 
this and that and that; in particular, I ‘‘have” 
no “doing,” no “making,” between them in a con- 
scious way. A sequence of electric sparks would 
be a far better analogy to what the sequence of 
conscious contents really is than the analogy 
of a “stream.” 


A. Association 

The theory of so-called association is the most 
simple and, at the same time, the oldest of all 
theories of scientific psychology. This theory is 
fully explained in every psychological text-book. 
We therefore may treat it very briefly, explain- 
ing it in our own terms: 

There is a something, which at first we shall 





NORMAL PSYCHOLOGY Ay 
simply call X, in which, though not in the spa- 


tial sense of the word “‘in,” are all those contents 
which may consciously be possessed in the future. 
But these contents are there, of course, not in 
the conscious state, for only one of all possible 
contents is conscious at a given moment of time. 
In what state, then, are they in the X? The 
answer is: In an wnconscious state, and the 
something we have called X, in which the un- 
scious contents are, is itself unconscious also. 
Here, then, we meet for the first time the much 
disputed term of the wnconscious. We meet it at 
the very entrance to association psychology, the 
most simple form of all theoretical psychology. 
What does the word “unconscious” mean? It 
certainly does not mean “physical” or “natu- 
ral’; it means “psychical but not conscious- 
psychical.” The term is negative in form only. 
like the term “‘immortal,” for instance. It means 
something positive, which, while we do not know 
it in the peculiarities of its existence, neverthe- 
less we know to be “‘psychical” in a very general 
and vague sense. The “unconscious” belongs to 
that general realm of empirical being which we 
call the “psychical” realm of empirical existence. 


48 THE CRISIS IN PSYCHOLOGY 


9 


“Unconscious,” and yet not physical, we may 
also say is a concept of theory that is presup- 
posed in order to “explain.” But to explain 
what? The answer is: The sequence of conscious 
contents as it «mmediately is. 'Thus we see that 
the very first step in causal psychology leads us 
right out of the realm of our immediate “‘pos- 
sessions” into the realm of a community of 
somethings all of which are merely meant as if 
they existed, just as in the case in the science of 
nature.*® 

How, then, does it happen that out of the 
many wnconscious somethings which are “in” the 
unconscious X, always one, at a given moment, 
becomes a consciously possessed something, and 
what are the general principles according to 
which the change from the unconscious state of 
a certain something into the conscious state is 
due? 

Association is the principle, we are told. And 
by this term is meant the following: 

Every content has two kinds of faculties or 
latent forces, as it were. When in the conscious 
state, one content may awaken another content 


16 Cf. Ordnungslehre, 2nd edit., 1923, pp. 146 ff. and 382 ff. 


NORMAL PSYCHOLOGY 49 


to consciousness ; when in the unconscious state 
it has the faculty of being awakened. And this 
awakening occurs according to the association 
principle: Those pairs of contents, say A and B, 
which have often been consciously had together 
or immediately after one another, or those pairs, 
which, though they have been consciously pos- 
sessed only once, were marked by a strong accent 
of feeling, stand in ‘“‘association affinity.” That 
means that when one of these contents stands 
before the conscious Ego, it most probably will 
awaken that other content with which it forms 
a pair. 

This, at least, is so-called association by con- 
tiguity, i.e., association proper. Text-books also 
tell us of association by similarity and contrast ; 
but this is a very vague concept, since, in a cer- 
tain sense at least, every content stands in 
“similarity” to every other and also in “con- 
trast” to every other. A cat is not only similar 
to a dog, since both are animals, but also stands 
in “contrast” to a dog. But a cat is also “‘simi- 
lar” to a tiger, also to coffee, as the words “cat” 
and “‘coffee’”’ both begin with a “c.” 

Thus the principle of association by similar- 


50 THE CRISIS IN PSYCHOLOGY 


ity and contrast very evidently lacks univocal- 
ity. 4, when conscious, may, according to that 
principle, arouse into consciousness B, but also 
C,.or D, or £, etc. 

But is association by contiguity much better? 
A has been together with B very often. Well, but 
it was also “together” with C or D or E. On 
what, then, does it depend, that at one time B 
is aroused by 4A, at another time C, and at a 
third time D, as is practically the case? Univocal 
determination is lacking also here. 

The law of association is therefore not a real 
“law.” What, for example, would the principle 
of Galileo tell us, if it took the form: A body in 
motion goes either straight on with the same 
velocity, or with an increasing or decreasing 
velocity, or it moves in a curve, or it turns round 
a corner, etc., etc.? But Galileo’s principle does 
not, as a matter of fact, have this ‘“‘form,”’ which 
is a form incapable of establishing any principle. 
Galileo’s principle does not speak of a body in 
motion, but of a body in motion “left to itself,” 
and of this it affirms inertia. But the so-called 
“principle” of association is, in fact, like the 
first, or false, formulation of Galileo’s law. 


NORMAL PSYCHOLOGY 51 


And even if the association principle did not 
lack univocality, it would still not be able to 
explain what is to be explained. We here reach a 
point of first importance. 

As time proceeds, the so-called inner psychical 
life becomes richer and richer in contents which 
have the accent of being final, of being “in 
order,” of being “‘true,” etc. And, besides, there 
are new contents appearing in inner life in the 
course of time, contents which may be of the 
form of a phantasy image or of the form of a 
thought, but which in any case are not mere 
repetitions of what has been had consciously 
before. 

Both these features constitute the most im- 
portant characteristics of psychical life, for 
psychical life is a matter of meaning or signifi- 
cance not only in a static, but also in a dynamic 
way. That is to say: not only is there meaning 
among its contents, elemental or complex, but 
the whole course of that life is directed towards 
an increase of meaning. It consists, so to speak, 
in an enrichment by meaning. 

The association theory, however, even in its 
broadest form, including association by similar- 


52 THE CRISIS IN PSYCHOLOGY 


ity and contrast, is absolutely unable to explain 
these important features of psychical life. It 
has nothing to do with enrichment of meaning, 
because it has nothing to do with meaning at all. 
It is absolutely incapable of explaining the ori- 
gin of any new content, be it nothing more than 
a phantasy image. For the association theory is 
by its very essence a theory of copying and can- 
not be more. 

This, then, is the greatest defect of the asso- 
ciation theory. It is not able to explain the chief 
characteristics of psychical life as they really 
are. This defect is fatal. 

This defect was, of course, seen by a good 
many psychologists, but for a long time they 
did not know how to evade it. At first, they tried 
to introduce the concepts of constellation and 
preparedness. ‘Though these concepts are by no 
means sufficient, they at least mark the first step 
of theoretical progress. Thus, the unconscious 
contents in the unconscious X were regarded as 
being in various relations to one another, the 
totality of these relations being a “‘constella- 
tion,” though not in the spatial sense of the 
word, of course. In connection with their con- 


NORMAL PSYCHOLOGY 53 


stellation the contents were regarded as being 
in different ways ‘“‘prepared” to follow the asso- 
ciative stimulus that went out from a content 
which happened to be in the conscious state at a 
given moment of time. 

This view, it is true, was a sort of quasi- 
mechanics of more than the one dimension, which 
is, so to speak, the character of the classical 
association theory. But, even then, such a view 
was by no means all that was required. For a 
quasi-mechanics of more than one dimension still 
_ remains quasi-‘“‘mechanics,” i.e., a causal theory 
that begins with singularities, and proceeds 
from these, in their very singleness, to the totali- 
ties to be explained. 

But this is the main point at issue. All sorts of 
quasi-“mechanics” are to be given up, if psy- 
chical life is to be explained as it really is, and 
it does not much matter whether we work on the 
analogy of a one-dimensional mechanics or of a 
many-dimensional one. In either case we have the 
concept of a system which is the swm of its parts, 
and it is this very concept that cannot explain 
psychical life as it really 1s. 

There were a few, Hoffding, for example, who 


64 THE CRISIS IN PSYCHOLOGY 


tried to bring the concept of wholeness into the 
old association theory. A law was proclaimed 
according to which there was an associative 
affinity between “part”? and “whole,” each part 
having the faculty of awakening the correspond- 
ing whole into conscious existence and vice versa. 
But in this theory, in the first place, whole and 
part were regarded as being fixed psychical 
quasi-things, so to speak, waiting merely to be 
called. And, secondly: Are there not a large 
number of “wholes” in relation to a given “part,” 
and vice versa? A fox is part of a zoological 
garden, of a hunting party, of the zoological 
system, of a museum, even the ‘‘Reinicke Fuchs” 
of a fairy tale. Universal determination is lack- 
ing here also. 

We must have other dynamic factors than 
merely “‘associative affinity” or forces. And all 
additions heretofore made to the classical asso- 
ciation theory were only, to put it briefly, of a 
static kind. 

The dynamic factors, then, which are needed 
for a complete causal theory of psychical life 
are of two kinds. We must have limiting agents 
and directing agents. 


NORMAL PSYCHOLOGY 55 


B. Limiting and Directing Agents 

By “limiting” agents I understand such uncon- 
scious causal psychical factors as reduce the 
number of possible associations, i.e., of all those 
associative affinities which might possibly be 
awakened, if the pure association theory were 
true. A certain content 4, now in the conscious 
state, may be in affinity with B, C, D, E.... 

.A, Y, Z. The limiting factor now stops, let 
us say, 15 of these 25 possibilities; then there 
remains only a choice among 10. Of course, we 
have not gained a univocal determination so far, 
but we are at least on the way to it. 

A few simple examples will serve to illustrate 
more clearly what is meant by limiting psychical 
dynamic factors. If we are occupied with, say, an 
historical problem, almost exclusively contents 
of an historical nature appear before us. The 
same is true in everyday life, as is well known. 

But, of course, we need more than this. We 
must find an unconscious dynamic agent that 
leads the single branches of the so-called 
“stream” of consciousness—which in fact is 
not a stream, as we know'’—to their relative 


17 Cf, p. 46. 


56 THE CRISIS IN PSYCHOLOGY 


ends, i.e., to some definite final contents which 
are in order. For all psychical life is nothing but 
various chains of contents the final link of which 
is ‘‘order.” 

Let me illustrate, by a few examples, what is 
meant by this expression. I shall do this at first 
in a more or less popular way, and shall bring in 
a technical formulation later. 

We all know what is meant by the words, that 
somebody has to perform a task, or, that he 
stands under a task, as we prefer to say. Let us, 
then, discuss what happens in psychical inner 
life, when we “stand under a task”? and have to 
perform it. People used to say in this connection 
that we “think” over the task and finally find (or 
do not find) the solution. This statement, how- 
ever, cannot be accepted by us, as we now know 
that I only consciously have something, but am 
not *‘doing”’ something consciously. Thinking as 
a conscious kind of doing, making, even ‘“‘becom- 
ing’ does not exist; to think, if we wish to use 
the word at all, means nothing more than to have 
a thought, and never anything else, at least in 
the sphere of the conscious. 

What, then, must we say instead of saying 


NORMAL PSYCHOLOGY 57 


that I ‘‘think” over the task in order to perform 
it? We have already briefly mentioned (page 
40), what the real “materials” are which are 
immediately present to the Ego, whenever popu- 
lar language speaks of ‘“‘thinking over a task.” 

There are the consecutive moments of time 
era Ce est, oso N. At each of these moments a 
something relating to the task is consciously 
possessed by the Ego that ‘‘stands under’’ it. 
Each subsequent something is richer in order, 
with regard to the task’s performance, and at 
the end, at the moment N, there is full order 
with regard to the task, final order, order with 
the accent of finality or however we may choose 
to put it. 

This discussion of what consciously hap- 
pens while “solving” a task, may still be, how- 
ever, a little too abstract and general. We have 
not yet mentioned certain peculiarities of great 
importance. 

In what form do I know that I am “standing 
under” a task? How is my “standing under” it 
consciously possessed ? 

In order to discuss this important question in 
an appropriate way, it will be best to study first 


58 THE CRISIS IN PSYCHOLOGY 


some particular tasks, “under which one may 
stand.” 

Let us assume that a schoolboy has to solve a 
mathematical equation of the second degree. 
What, then, does the boy consciously have at the 
start? He has a certain visual image, i.e., the 
written or printed equation, which has a certain 
relational character. But he also has the general 
formula of the solution, which consists of two 
parts or, rather, steps. For, firstly, the equation 
must be brought into the form: 


xv +axr+b—0, 
and, then, secondly, the special values of a and 
b must take their places in the equation: 


pee ea. a 
4 yi 


Now our schoolboy begins to “think over” 
the solution. That means, as we know, that he 
does nothing. But a something, which we may 
again call X, as we called it before when speak- 
ing of the association theory, does for him; and 
this in such a way that the next content which he 
consciously has, after the original one, is a cer- 


NORMAL PSYCHOLOGY 59 


tain transformation of the given equation, say, 
by a division by a common factor on both sides 
that renders the equation much easier to investi- 
gate. Then another content comes to our school- 
boy, and, perhaps, two more such contents, each 
of them nearer to the being in order, 1.e., to the 
solution. And then suddenly the solution is there. - 

Let us call the general formula of the solution 
of an equation of the second degree an antici- 
pated schema. Then it is the task given to our 
schoolboy to fill this schema with content on the 
foundation of the equation presented to him. 
It is as if there were a tension between the an- 
ticipated schema and the original equation. 
This tension acts in the unconscious X in a 
definite and directing way, after limiting factors 
have already restricted the number of possible 
associations. 

Let us take another instance: A boy wishes to 
“remember” a name, say of a king of France. 
He has in the beginning as his anticipated 
schema the totality of the relations of a certain 
period of European history; most of the schema 
is filled with content, but there is at a certain 


60 THE CRISIS IN PSYCHOLOGY 


point a gap, the relations of which are quite 
fixed on all sides, namely: the forgotten name of 
the king. The boy again “does” nothing, but the 
unconscious X “does,” under the influence of the 
tension between empty schema and schema filled 
with content, and finally the name is remembered 
and,—a rather strange thing but nevertheless 
true,—is recognized at the same time as the name 
in question. 

What we have described so far has been 
studied experimentally on a very broad founda- 
tion by the psychologists of the Kiilpe school. 
The “task” was given to the “Versuchperson” of 
making out whether two given concepts were 
subordinated one to the other, or coordinated, 
and whether they stood in the relation of whole 
and part or of universal and particular. The 
“Versuchperson” had to decide and write down 
what he had “‘consciously possessed” during his 
so-called “thinking.”” The record thus written 
was then subjected to theoretical analysis. 

Certain technical terms that play an impor- 
tant role in modern psychology of thinking (and 
willing) may now be explained. 


NORMAL PSYCHOLOGY 61 


There is, in the first place, the term determin- 
ing tendency (Determinierende Tendenz), in- 
troduced by Ach. In popular language, this 
means the final aim of “thinking” and “willing,” 
or, in our own terms, that which is to be in order, 
that which at the end is to be had consciously 
with the accent of being final in a certain defin-_ 
its respect. In our mathematical instance, this is 
the “‘equation solved.” The idea of it may be con- 
sciously had occasionally, certainly in the be- 
ginning, but it acts “in” the unconscious X as 
an unconscious something, or, rather, what acts 
is the “tension” between the task and its solu- 
tion, this tension also being considered as un- 
scious. The “‘determining tendency” acts in two 
ways: firstly as limiting, and secondly as direct- 
ing. That means, first, that it merely eliminates 
a great number of associative possibilities, and, 
secondly, that it selects out of the number left 
by its limiting power such associations as are 
suitable for the solution. For, certainly, the as- 
sumption of only a limiting power does not 
suffice. 


The “determining tendency” is, as we know, 


62 THE CRISIS IN PSYCHOLOGY 


not always present in its conscious state. It is 
so present only in the beginning and, later on, 
perhaps occasionally. But it acts in its uncon- 
scious form without interruption. Rather often, 
indeed, there are tendencies at work which never 
become conscious during their acting, or per- 
haps only at the end. These dynamic psychical 
agents, then, are pure theoretical entities that 
do not rest on any immediately conscious foun- 
dation at all. They have been called latent direct- 
ing potencies (Latente Kinstellung—Koffka). 

These latent directing potencies play a big 
role in daily psychical life. Almost always we are 
“under” a sort of task or endeavor which we do 
not consciously know ourselves, but which pene- 
trates the whole conscious life by its directing 
force. 

The determining tendencies in the narrower 
sense of the term, namely, those directing poten- 
cies which, though unconscious as dynamic fac- 
tors, still have their conscious representation 
occasionally, are, of course, much more appro- 
priate for analytical and experimental investi- 
gation than are those potencies which, as regards 


NORMAL PSYCHOLOGY 63 


their conscious state, remain latent forever. But 
psychological theory is entitled to introduce 
them also by analogy. 


C. On So-called Reproduction 

We now leave the limiting and directing psy- 
chical aspects for a while, with the intention of 
coming back to them from another point of 
view later on. For it seems necessary, before we » 
proceed, to discuss a certain problem which 
might very well have been dealt with in an earlier 
chapter, but which in any case must be discussed 
now. 

Let us begin by introducing a new term: re- 
production,—well known from _ psychological 
text-books. 

Reproduction means the process of transfor- 
mation of a psychical content from the uncon- 
scious into the conscious state. Reproduction, 
then, is in the service of association first of all, 
and, since association, or at least, associative 
affinity, is a—not the—foundation of all psy- 
chical processes, reproduction is fundamental, 
at least as far as the conscious side of psychical 
life is concerned. 


64 THE CRISIS IN PSYCHOLOGY 


What then does reproduction mean? Does not 
the word suggest that there exist “in” the un- 
conscious X a great number of unconscious 
quasi-things, in the form of fixed and definite 
somethings, and that these quasi-things have 
two modi of existence, an unconscious and a 
conscious one? In this case alone would the word 
re-production be a proper name for the matter 
in question. 

But at once a difficulty appears. For there is 
the faculty of so-called phantasy. The mermaid 
and the centaur are some of its results, the one 
a human woman with a fish’s tail, the other a 
horse with a man’s head. These came into psy- 
chical life one day for the first time. They cer- 
tainly were not re-produced as such. They were 
not quasi-things, but have been made quasi- 
things by unconscious agents which are at work 
in phantastic imagination. But this woman-and- 
fish, horse-and-man, as psychical possessions, 
cannot have been “fixed and definite” quasi- 
things, but must have been dissolvable things. 
What, then, are fixed and definite things? 

And another difficulty here appears, much 
more severe and grave than the first one. It has 


NORMAL PSYCHOLOGY 65 


to do with memory images in their relation to the 
originals, which first came “‘through the senses,” 
a phrase we may be allowed to use here in its 
popular meaning. 

The memory images are by no means “fixed 
and definite” copies of the originals, but differ 
from them in two respects. Firstly, they almost 
always are nothing but fragments of the orig- 
inals, for they always lack certain details that 
the originals have. Secondly, they are always 
damaged or corrupted “‘copies.” For example, 
let me ask you to try to imagine the head of a 
friend or a mountain range you know very well. 
Make a sketch of these from your imagination. 
You will always find, when looking at the real 
friend or the real mountains again, that your 
sketch is wrong. What you have drawn is not 
complete, and, what is more important, not quite 
correct. The strange thing, however, is that 
your sketch, though imcomplete and incorrect, is 
yet a whole, and a whole of a highly individual- 
ized character. You have imagined your friend 
in a definite color and situation, say, half from 
the left, and on a specifically colored back- 
ground. 


66 THE CRISIS IN PSYCHOLOGY 


What, then, remains of the quasi-psychical 
things, fixed and definite, which are said to be 
re-produced, i.e., merely transformed from the 
unconscious. into the conscious state? Almost 
nothing, it seems to me. 

There is no re-production; there is produc- 
tion out of material which is able to accept any 
new form or combination of its elements. 

And now, to all that we have here discussed, 
must be added the point mentioned in a previous 
chapter, that any content that is re-produced 
(as text-books used to say) even the second time, 
bears on itself the accent of having been already 
consciously possessed, and differs by this very 
accent from its first conscious existence. 

Quasi-things, therefore, in psychical life, if we 
wish to use this expression at all, may be called 
the elemental materials we have studied in the 
beginning, but absolutely nothing else. 

What, then, is association on such a founda- 
tion? Nothing but a rather rough method of 
classification of certain comparatively simple 
production phenomena. There are no fixed and 
definite psychical things with fixed associative 
affinities. But the acting, psychical, dynamic 


NORMAL PSYCHOLOGY 67 


principle operates occasionally, in the simplest 
cases of its so acting, in such a way that it is as 
if there were such things. The use of the word 
“association” is only a rather loose way of de- 
scribing what happens. For there are neither 
fixed things, nor fixed affinities, nor any real 
re-production. | 

After this fundamental discovery, which, 
though it might have been explained earlier, here 
stands in its proper place, it seems to me, we may 
return to the analysis of the ‘determining ten- 
dency” or the “standing under a task.” 

What is to follow will lead us to the final con- 
cept of normal dynamic causal psychology, as 
far as inner psychical life is concerned. 


D. The Concept of My Soul 
Tasks to be solved may be of three different 
forms: 

Firstly, you may have an anticipated schema 
already filled with content with the exception of 
but one place. This is the case when you try to 
remember, for example, the name of some par- 
ticular king. 

Secondly, you may have an anticipated schema 


68 THE CRISIS IN PSYCHOLOGY 


which is quite empty and is to be filled with con- 
tent on the foundation of a certain given system 
of relations. This is the case if you try to “‘solve” 
a mathematical equation. 

The expression, completing a complex, (Kom- 
plexerganzung—Selz) has been used. The un- 
conscious directing tendency acts, with the result 
of completing a complex which had been partly 
or almost wholly incomplete. But we are by no 
means thinking here of a so-called association 
between whole and part, as discussed above 
(page 53). For we are no longer picturing, as 
“fixed and definite’ psychical things merely to 
be re-produced, either the complete complex, or 
the incomplete complex, or the material to be 
put into the complex, or the system of relations. 
Completing a complex to us is now merely a de- 
scriptive term denoting a special way in which 
psychical dynamic factors very often act. 

Thirdly, there are cases in psychical life where 
anticipated schemata are not only to be filled 
with content, partly or completely, but where 
there are no such schemata, where, therefore, the 
schemata themselves have to be found. This form 
of “solution” is at the same time the very thing 


NORMAL PSYCHOLOGY 69 


that renders our psychical life valuable in re- 
spect to cultural progress. All ‘“‘invention,” in 
the broadest meaning of the word, scientific, the- 
oretical, ethical, religious, artistic, technical, 
rests upon it. Here the concept of a determining 
tendency at work in the sphere of the uncou- 
sciousness seems to fail. Actually, however, it 
does not fail, as we see if only we look closely. 

In order to understand this, let us go back to 
the foundations of philosophy and begin with 
some questions of mere terminology. We shall 
not, by the way, be very “modern” in this 
paragraph. 

We shall, first, give a name to the unconscious 
X in which all the phenomena we have studied 
are happening. We call this X by its old name 
soul or mind, or, rather, my soul or mind. For 
psychology, so far, has been concerned only with 
what I have or have had, and therefore soul ex- 
ists only in relation to “I” in its solipsistic sense, 
—for this part of the discussion at least. 

We may say that my soul is the unconscious 
foundation of my consciously having in its total- 
ity and temporal sequence. In my soul there is 
continuous becoming, subject to certain forms 


70. THE’ CRISIS IN PSYCHOLOGY 


of causality, while J, as we know, have con- 
sciously in a discontinuous form that is com- 
parable to the sparking of an electric machine 
(page 46). 

But, in this part of the book at least, we are 
not considering my soul, as an absolute or meta- 
physical reality. My soul is a concept of order, 
which means a certain realm or sphere of exist- 
ence, as if it were independent, 1.e., as af 1t were 
merely ‘‘Ego-possessed” in its being. But only 
as if. My soul as a concept remains my concept, 
my immediate object, but it is of the class of 
immediate objects which ‘‘mean”’ mediate ones, 
just as do all concepts that relate to what is 
called nature, or empirical, quasi-independent 
reality in space (and with relation to space), 
and as does the concept of nature itself. 

Thus, then, I posit’® the concept of my soul, 
since I know by intuition that in this way there 
will be order in the totality of all my having con- 
sctously in the course of time. I intuitively 
“‘see”?® the form of order, my soul, as an uncon- 
scious something endowed with becoming and 


18 In German: Ich setze. 
19 In German: Ich schaue. 


NORMAL PSYCHOLOGY 71 


with special forms of causality; as penetrating, 
so to speak, the totality of my consciously hav- 
ing, past, present and future, and as uniting it 
into one great unity, but only as if it existed 
independently of my “having” it. 

I speak of soul or mind, therefore, without 
hesitation, hoping that the reader will not over-. 
look my critical reserve as to this concept. But 
I do not speak of “my consciousness” or “the 
consciousness,” nor have I used in this book the 
customary phrase, “content of my conscious- 
ness.” “My consciousness” would be a very mis- 
leading expression for the matter in question 
here, since the main point of our former discus- 
sion was to show that there is no becoming, no 
causality, no doing, no temporal continuity on 
the conscious side of psychicallife. Weneed some- 
thing unconscious to explain dynamically the se- 
quence of conscious phenomena, and, of course, 
we should not call this ‘the consciousness.” 

But the term “the consciousness” as a sub- 
stantive is misleading even in respect to my con- 
scious having as such. It suggests a thing, and 
“T*’ is not even a quasi-thing. And certainly there 
is nothing like a conscious pot or cup “in” which 


“2 THE CRISIS IN PSYCHOLOGY 


there is something. With regard to the words 
mind or soul, it is likewise not quite correct to 
use the word “in,” but the object denoted by 
them may at least be considered by analogy with 
something “in” which there is something else in 
the original sense of the word. 

“The consciousness,” then, is a bad term for 
the indefinable and irreducible 7. Our primordial 
fact (page 1), I consciously have something, 
must here take the place of “the conscious- 
ness.”*? But let us go back to the problem of 
psychical causality, and discuss the questions 
which still remain to be solved, on the foundation 
of our new concept my soul. 

We have asked the question (page 61) : What 
about “‘determining tendencies,” or the complet- 
ings of complexes, when there is no anticipated 
schema waiting to be filled with content, either 
partly or completely? Here, in order to find a 
solution, we must go back to the very beginning 
of all philosophy. And a solution must be found, 
for otherwise our dynamic psychology would 
remain very incomplete. 


20 “The consciousness” is a quite impossible word for the 
soul or mind, which is most decidedly unconscious, 


NORMAL PSYCHOLOGY 73 


We remember that, at the very beginning of 
all philosophy, there is only the primordial fact: 
I consciously have something (page 1). But 
this primordial fact is not quite sufficient to sup- 
port the whole grand edifice of philosophy. An 
addition not only must be given to it, but can be 
given: the something which I consciously have 
is ordered. I consciously have a something in 
order, the concept of order being itself inexpli- 
cable and indefinable, yet “clear and abstract,” 
to use the phrase of Descartes, by immediate 
intuition of its meaning. 

We now turn from this primordial fact and 
from “phenomenology” to psychology. 

My soul is the unconscious foundation of my 
consciously having; thus it is “posited” in the 
service of order. My primordial knowing of the 
meaning of order and my primordial willing of 
order with regard to all possible contents there- 
fore indicates to the Ego a certain primordial 
state and dynamics of my soul; my soul also is in 
the possession of order and can make order, for 
it has faculties of making and doing, called ‘‘will- 
ing” and “thinking” in the sense of activities, 
which the Ego does not possess. 


(4 THE CRISIS IN PSYCHOLOGY 


I may now apply some of our psychological 
results: 

It is as if I were always standing “under the 
task’ of finding complete order, and as if my 
soul were “solving” this task. “I’’ (and my soul) 
is by its very essence “under” this primordial 
task; it is in primordial and inexplicable pos- 
session of the primordial ‘‘anticipated schema” 
order, and the soul works according to it. 
“Kiverything that is consciously possessed must 
be looked upon as being in definite order’’—this, 
then, is the primordial task. | 

And now, “under” this primordial task, spe- 
cial and definite anticipated schemata arise be- 
foreme. They constitute the special determinated 
tendencies of which ordinary psychology speaks, 
and “under”? which the soul is working (and J 
am consciously having), in science and in every- 
day life. 

The first invention of all schemata, or, to put 
it differently, the first intuition of problems, 
arises out of the very primordial essense of Ego 
and soul. On the foundation of its primordial 
anticipated schema, order, the soul is establish- 
ing special and particular schemata and gives 


NORMAL PSYCHOLOGY 5 


them over to its particular dynamics for work- 
ing. And, in correspondence to this, I have pri- 
mordially by intuition the concept of order, 
secondarily, special problems of order, and ter- 
tiarily, the solution of these problems, 1.e., the 
filling out of the problems or mere empty sche- 
mata with special contents. From this point of 
view all concepts of ordinary psychology, such 
as production, association, limiting factors, di- 
recting factors or tendencies, and so on, become 
concepts of only secondary and, I might say, 
preliminary value. 

There is only one concept in normal psychol- 
ogy which is quite final: My ordered and order- 
ing unconscious soul. 

Now, let us try to tell still a little more about 
the soul. 

The soul must be regarded as a dynamic sys- 
tem endowed with a particular organization 
which corresponds to my possessing the primor- 
dial logical meanings or ‘“‘categories’ and the 
relations which are valid in their sphere. 

We, of course, are able to discover this dy- 
namic organization only on the foundation of 
the logical structure of our conscious contents, 


“6 THE CRISIS IN PSYCHOLOGY 


which is static. For we cannot investigate the 
soul as we investigate the anatomy of an animal. 

Therefore everything in this field requires in- 
vestigation by inference and analogy. And, fur- 
thermore, everything remains very far from 
satisfactory. For our mental organization, un- 
fortunately, is such that it is able to approach 
the details of a given manifoldness only if this 
manifoldness is a manifoldness in space. But the 
soul and its organization is not “spatial.” 
Strange to say, therefore, the Ego cannot inves- 
tigate in full detail its own substructure! The 
Ego-part of the mind cannot really approach 
the full mind. 

Another problem comes upon the scene: May 
not the organized soul have its evolution or 
quasi-embryonic development? Certainly it may. 
But so little is satisfactorily known about this, 
that we shall omit this topic from our discus- 
sions, the greatest difficulty being the question 
whether part—or even all—of the “embryol- 
ogy” of mind may not be embryology of the 
brain at bottom. But this can be fully under- 
stood only later on. 

What, now, about the causality of the soul, 


NORMAL PSYCHOLOGY ah 


or, in particular, about the causal nature of any 
particular determining, directing tendency? 

Is such a tendency a causal agent or factor at 
all? If we call causal anything that determines 
the quality of an event by its own quality, it cer- 
tainly is. But it does not stand in analogy to 
mechanical causality. Mechanical causality, as 
I have shown elsewhere, is causality between sin- 
gularities, such as atoms; association in its 
crudest form stands in analogy to such causal- 
ity. Mechanical causality is not causality as 
such, but corresponds only to one of four a 


*t one of them being 


priort forms of causality, 
individualising or whole-making causality, real- 
ized, according to my system of vitalistic biol- 
ogy, in the organic world. 

It is, to this schema of whole-making causal- 
ity, then, that the causality of and “in” the soul 
may be said to correspond. But for the very 


*» is here used, 


same reason that the word “in 
namely, that there is no better word, we are also 
unable to make out this correspondence in detail. 
Mental causality shares this disadvantage with 
any empirical illustration of individualizing 


21 See my Ordnungslehre, 2nd edit., 1923, pp. 197 ff. 


18). THE (CRISIS FINS DSY CHOROGS: 


causality. For, we may repeat, our mental or- 
ganization is restricted, being able to get at 
final details only where there is spatial mani- 
foldnesses and, therefore, strange to say, not 
with regard to itself. 

Finally: Is the soul “conscious”? We have 
called it unconscious, so far. But this may only 
mean that it is not J, i.e., that it is not what I 
mean by the word “I.” Does it possess another 
I, 1.e., an Ego, that would, then be a real alter 
Ego with respect to the J proper? 

We merely raise the question in this para- 
graph; for we do not yet know what the “‘other 
I,” the alter Ego, means. In fact, it means 
nothing to us, so far, since our whole philoso- 
phy and psychology has up to this point been 
“‘solipsistic.” 

Later on we shall return to this big and curi- 
ous problem. Thus far it has sufficed to regard 
the soul as a mediate or empirical object which 
is the “‘unconscious” foundation of the Ego that 
has consciously, and to regard the concept of 
“my soul” as a concept of order. “Object”? and 
“concept meaning an object” must, of course, 
be distinguished here in the same way as, for 


NORMAL PSYCHOLOGY 79 


example, in dealing with the problem of “God.” 

So much, then, about the dynamics of inner 
psychical life. We shall now enter quite a new 
field of analytical research, a field that will re- 
quire a number of quite new concepts. It is here 
that we shall turn to those problems which the 
text-books of psychology used to rank first, 
namely, problems concerning sensation, percep- 
tion, moving power, and so on. 

But the very first thing we have to do will be 
to introduce a certain concept which, strange to 
say, is best known in a popular way and is, at 
the same time, very difficult to deal with in a 
critical and analytical manner: the concept of 


my body. 


4, SUMMARY 

Before we begin our new analysis, however, let 
me sum up those three characteristics of modern 
psychology which constitute its very essence, 
and at the same time mark the great difference 
that modern psychology shows in relation to all 
earlier psychological doctrines that claimed to 
be scientific and of general validity. 

The four chief characteristics are as follows: 


80 THE CRISIS IN PSYCHOLOGY 
I. The inactivity of the conscious Ego. 

II. Forms of meaning as being already pres- 
ent among the elements of psychical con- 
scious objects. 

III. Direeting agents in the service of order 
as the main factors in psychical, wncon- 
scious, dynamics. 

IV. The critical foundation of all and the 
starting point of the discussion, the pri- 
mordial fact: “I consciously have some- 
thing.” 

Of these four topics the first and the fourth 
are my own theoretical property, while the sec- 
ond and the third are the results of researches 
of a very different kind, in part logical, in part 
psychological, as explained in the beginning. 
The psychologists, Ktilpe, Marbe, Messer, Buh- 
ler, Ach, Koffka and Selz share the greatest 
honors in this field. 

The systematics, 1.e., the logical arrangement 
of the whole matter discussed so far, is, however, 
my own work. But I believe that not many of 
those who stand on the ground of “modern psy- 
chology” at all would reject the arrangement 


followed. 


NORMAL PSYCHOLOGY 81 


In the beginning of this book I spoke of the 
strange situation that, before about 1900, there 
should have been “two psychologies,” the one 
scientific and universal, but incomplete, the other 
complete, but only the expression of the personal 
belief of this or that philosopher. 

This impossible state of affairs has now been 
changed: We now have, at least, a psychology 
of inner life which is scientific, universal and 
complete at the same time. Our psychology 
is capable of explaining what is to be explained, 
i.e., our psychology realizes in full the scheme of 
order present in the totality of psychical facts. 
It is not forced to leave aside the main points, 
namely, meaning, and progress with regard to 
meaning, as was, strange to say, the older 
psychology. 

Contents which have a meaning can never 
arise from elements which are meaningless, and 
enrichment in meaning cannot exist without dy- 
namic agents directed towards it. This is the 
very point where the older psychology was in- 
sufficient. Modern psychology has filled the gap. 


The situation is, in fact, very similar to the one 


82 THE CRISIS IN PSYCHOLOGY 


in biology: individuality can never arise from 
elements which are neutral with regard to it, and 
cannot be realized without individualizing dy- 
namic agents. 

Let us finally mention a very important con- 
sequence connected with modern psychology. 

History and sociology, both taken in the 
widest sense of the words, are to a great extent, 
perhaps even completely, applied psychology. 
There may be features of super-personal whole- 
ness and evolution in them that would not be 
explicable on, so to speak, a personal-psycho- 
logical foundation. We do not know much about 
that, though we know that in any case a good 
number of such psychological facts, in the 
personal sense, are connected with both those 
sciences. 

History and sociology, then, need psychol- 
ogy. But, of course, they need only a psychology 
of which they can really make use. Now the older 
psychology, with its very primitive theory of 
materials, and its unsatisfactory association 
theory, could not be used or “applied” by those 
sciences at all. Historians and_ sociologists, 


NORMAL PSYCHOLOGY 83 


therefore, did not care much for psychology, 
indeed they very often had a decidedly hostile 
attitude toward it. And they were right. 

But now we have a new psychology, which 
not only may be applied, but must be applied. 
This means that the modern psychologist not 
only offers to the historian and sociologist a- 
sound psychology, but also that he is entitled to 
demand that those scientists should really “ap- 
ply” his psychology, and not put it aside as they 
have been doing heretofore. The modern psy- 
chologist may even dare to say that the work of 
the historian and sociologist may be helped 
enormously by such an application. 

We shall learn, later on, that there is still 
another branch of modern psychology which is 
to be of great importance for history and the 
sciences connected with it. I am thinking of the 
psychology of what is generally called the sub- 
conscious. But it is certainly well to realize that 
“normal” psychology, pure and simple, has al- 
ready changed its aspect to such an extent that 
it is not only able to serve but also entitled to 
demand that it be used. 

Meaning or significance and enrichment in 


84 THE CRISIS IN PSYCHOLOGY 


significance is almost everything in psychical 
life, in any case they are its most important 
characteristics. And modern normal psychology 
takes account of both. With regard to signifi- 
cance as such, modern psychology even tells us 
that psychical life is life in significance; for 
“consciously to have” is to have significances in 
every Case. 


Il. PSYCHOPHYSICS 
1. MY BODY 


B ODIES are parts of what we call nature. 
The concept of nature is a concept of order. 
By it, as my immediate possession, I ‘‘mean” a_ 
community of quasi-independent things and re- 
lations among things. A single constituent or 
part of nature, as, for instance, my work-table, 
is also “‘meant” in its quasi-independency as a 
mediate or empirical object. That by which it is 
“meant” is an immediate object, 1.e., a something 
that is immediately had or possessed con- 
sciously, say the perceptive image or memory 
image of my work-table, or even merely the 
“thinking” of it. “Meaning” as an accent of cer- 
tain psychical contents, then, belongs to the 
class of immediate objects; that which is 
“meant” is the mediate or empirical object. I 
“have” the mediate or empirical objects only in 
so far as I have immediate somethings possess- 
ing a meaning—accents in themselves. Meaning- 
accents, of course, are the same thing as what 


86 THE CRISIS IN PSYCHOLOGY 


we have called in a previous chapter (page 21) 
accents of the sphere of existence. 

But this discussion is only incidental. It merely 
serves as a short logical introduction into the 
realm of nature. 

Bodies in nature are of greatly varied kinds. 
There are inorganic bodies and organic or liv- 
ing ones, both of them existing in many indi- 
viduals which may be classified into species, 
genera, families, etc. 

There is one single body, however, among the 
enormous number of bodies, which has quite a 
unique and exceptional position. It is an organic 
or living body; it even belongs to a well known 
group of these bodies, the human bodies, which, 
on their part, belong to the Primates, the Mam- 
mals, the Vertebrates. But in spite of this, the 
body in question is something else to me than all 
other bodies are. I am speaking of my body. 

That which makes my body different from all 
other bodies is the immediate sensible data by 
which it is indicated to me. These data are in one 
respect poorer, but in almost every other respect 
much richer, than the immediate data on the 
basis of which I speak of a “body” as a special 


PSYCHOPHYSICS 87 


constituent of nature in general, even of an or- 
ganic, nay, even of a human body. 

In the optical sphere the data which relate to 
my body are poorer than with regard to others, 
for IJ cannot “‘see’”’ certain parts of my body, my 
ears and, in particular, my eyes, for instance, 
unless I use a certain apparatus called a mirror. 
In the motor or kinesthetic sphere the data are 
richer with regard to my body than with regard 
to others. In untechnical language, other bodies 
may be “touched” and give me a particular 
sensation or, in our technical language, pure 
suchness (page 12), in this case. But my body 
gives me sensations or suchness of particular 
kinds in correspondence with its various states: 
pain sensations, and sensations of being touched, 
each endowed with a special sign of localization 
(page 13), also visual sensations, and, finally, 
sensations with regard to the movement of the 
limbs. 

In the strict terms of logic the situation is a 
somewhat different one, if not actually the re- 
verse: There are very many somethings which I 
consciously have, all of the forms of pure such- 
nesses of greatly varied types, all in particular 


88 THE CRISIS IN PSYCHOLOGY 


relations to one another. The total community 
of all this, including also faculties or “‘possibili- 
ties,’ is such that I see by intuition that it would 
give me a good instance of order, if I should 
posit a special concept on its foundation. I 
therefore posit the concept of order, my body, 
i.e., an immediate object of the class of thoughts 
which has the accent of meaning “my body” as a 
constituent of empirical nature. 


All this is rather complicated and the reader ~ 


may ask what these logical subtleties have to do 
with a discussion of psychological problems. 
But I answer, without hesitation, that we have 
founded our psychology from the very begin- 
ning, not popularly, but philosophically, and, in 
particular, logically, and that, for this reason, 
it would disturb the unity of the whole, if now, 
merely for the sake of convenience, we should 
speak of my body in the common and naive- 
realistic way, as of a thing that is self-evident. 
By no means is the existence of “my body” a 
self-evident matter, so little so that, on the con- 
trary, one might well say that there is nothing 
so strange as the fact that “I” am bound to 


eS ee ee 


PSYCHOPHYSICS 89 


my body forever, during my life, and can never 
get rid of it—except in sleep. 

And this, as we all know, is also one of the 
particular characteristics of my body in com- 
parison with other bodies which we are able, 
when we do not care for them, to exclude from 
what we have,—by shutting our eyes, for 
example. 

Not much critical insight is required to avoid 
confusing the meaning of the word Ego and my 
body; only a very unphilosophical mind would 
be likely to confuse the two. But, it seems to me, 
there are many persons who do not fully realize 
that my body is in fact my object, and that it is 
a something that is consciously had by “TY? in 
the form of “being meant” in just the same 
logical sense as any other body is meant, and 
differing from other bodies only insofar as the 
number and quality of the immediate data which 
form the foundation of the concept my body are 
different from the number and quality of data 
underlying the concept body in nature in gen- 
eral. It is, in particular, the so-called kinesthetic 
data, including the local accents of Lotze (page 


90 THE CRISIS IN PSYCHOLOGY 


13), that play the important part in the logical 
construction of empirical reality here, and ea- 
clusively here. 


2. THE FUNCTIONAL RELATION BETWEEN BODY 
AND MIND 
We now return to problems of psychology. 

In the part of this book immediately preced- 
ing we have studied what we called the inner psy- 
chical life, and have been able to discover at 
least the most general causal laws which are re- 
sponsible for its order, these laws being cen- 
tered finally in the one and single concept, my 
whole and whole-making soul. 

My inner psychical life gua inner life is now 
found to have points where it breaks up, where 
there does not exist any longer a continuity of 
content in it, where something alien, as it were, 
seems to invade it. 

Everyday philosophy regards this problem 
very superficially, and does not see that there is 
any special difficulty in understanding the fact: 
I have sensation or a group of sensations, a per- 
ception, whenever there is any breaking, as it 
were, of my inner life. Nature comes into contact 


PSYCHOPHYSICS 91 


with my mind; nature “acts” upon it. And this 
happens through the sense organs of my body. 

All this, however, is far from being as easy 
and “self-evident”? as it may seem to be to one 
who is unaccustomed to a philosophical way of 
thinking. On the contrary, some of the greatest 
difficulties of all philosophy are met with at this 
point. 

What is actually true about the “acting of 
nature upon my mind by the sense organs of my 
body,” is the following: 

There appear before consciousness many con- 
tents which are certainly not explained on the 
basis of either the acting of my whole, and whole- 
making, soul in general or the directing activity 
of a “determining tendency” in particular, as, 


»” a flash or hear a 


for instance, when I “see 
motor car passing my house. I know by experi- 
ence that whenever such a content appears, 
something always happens in a sense organ, a 
nerve, and a part of the brain as well. Or more 
strictly put, I know that in this case I might 
immediately have a certain something which I 
refer, by the function of “‘meaning,” to the parts 


of the mediate or empirical objects just named. 


92 THE CRISIS IN PSYCHOLOGY 


For surely I can imagine that I might “see” the 
changes which occur in my eye or ear, my optic 
or acoustic nerve, my optic or acoustic brain 
sphere, at the time that corresponds to my see- 
ing a flash or hearing a motor car. 

There certainly is a functional dependence, in 
any case, between my consciously having a cer- 
tain complex of pure suchnesses and the quasi- 
independent happening in certain parts of my 
body, the word “functional” being taken in the 
neutral, mathematical sense of the word, which 
is beyond the concept of “causal’? dependence 
and stands on quite an indifferent level. In a 
merely provisional way we therefore may say, 
roughly, that it certainly is as if nature were 
acting upon my mind, leaving open the question 
whether such an ‘“‘acting’’ really does happen. 
Psychophysics is the science which tries to inves- 
tigate all such functional dependences, and all 
details connected therewith. 

Here we should pause for a moment to note 
the difference between our conception of psycho- 
physics and that of the ordinary text-books in 


psychology. 


PSYCHOPHYSICS 93 


Most text-books in psychology, though not 
all, stand on a “‘naive-realistic” platform. They 
regard “my body” as an accepted, self-evident 
fact; they take it as “existing” without asking 
what that means. They then generally begin 
with the genesis of “sensations” in the psycho- 
physical sense, regarding this as the introduc- 
tory chapter to psychology. You will have ob- 
served, however, that we have proceeded in just 
the reverse order. For the change in time of my 
having something consciously has been the start- 
ing point of our psychology, leading ultimately 
to the concept of my soul, “whole and whole- 
making” in a dynamic way. We introduce psy- 
chophysics only because we are forced to do 
so by certain facts, namely, the impossibility of 
explaining the appearance of all conscious con- 
tents on the foundation of the concept of my 
soul with its inner dynamics. 

The conditions in modern psychology are 
similar to those which prevail in modern logic. 
Traditional logic began with “things’”’ and went 
on to “concepts,” while modern logic begins 
with “significances” and proceeds to “things.” 


94 THE CRISIS IN PSYCHOLOGY 


The older psychology began with sensations 
coming from the action of things, while modern 
psychology begins with my having all sorts of 
contents including significances, and then pro- 
ceeds, because it is compelled to do so in the 
service of order, to create the strange object, 


b) 


“my body,” and to posit the concept of sensa- 


tion in a rather complicated way. 


3. SOME PARTICULAR PROBLEMS OF 

PSYCHOPHYSICS 
We now come to the psychophysical part of 
psychology, which used to be treated in the 
text-books at considerable length. We shall only 
mention the problems that are especially con- 
cerned here, adding here and there a few critical 
remarks. The text-books offer sufficient evidence 
in these cases and may be recommended to the 
reader without hesitation in this respect, if only 
he does not forget the naive-realistic basis of 
those books, which is harmless in case it is thor- 
oughly understood as the abbreviation of a 
rather complex relation of logical conditions 
present. 


PSYCHOPHYSICS 95 


Let us then mention a few of the most impor- 
tant problems. 


A. Weber’s Law 
What is the relation of an increase of the inten- 
sity of a physical stimulus to the increase of the 
intensity of the corresponding sensation? 

The answer is, as we know, this: While the 
stimulus increases ina geometrical progression— 
(1, 4,9, 16 . . .)—the intensity of the sensa- 
tion increases arithmetically—(1, 2, 3,4 .. .). 

The law does not hold for very weak and very 
strong stimuli. And there are certain difficulties. 
Firstly, there is the question whether sensations, 
1.e., pure “‘suchnesses”’ consciously had, have any 
“intensity” at all. Bergson denies that they 
have, and regards every so-called intensity of a 
given quality, say, a specific red or the musical 
tone do, as a particular quality which is specific 
in itself. But it is my opinion that we may speak 
of the same “do” in various intensities. It is diffi- 
cult, secondly, to determine what is to be re- 
garded as the unity, as the “one more” in the 
scale of intensities in the realm of a given sensa- 


96 THE CRISIS IN PSYCHOLOGY 


tion quality. The power of exact measurement 
is certainly not given to us, and so far Bergson 
is right. What we are able to regard as “just 
more” in correspondence to various stimuli is 
generally considered as unity; but the problem is 
whether the ‘‘just more” is always the same 
“more” in the scale. And the concept of the so- 
called Schwelle or threshold is also not without 
its complications. 


B. Johannes Miiller’s Law of “Specific Sense 
Energy” 

The term “energy” is, of course, misleading ; 
what is meant is potency or faculty. 

According to Miller each sense-nerve or even 
each fiber of each sense-nerve answers to a stimu- 
lation with a fixed sensation, quite regardless of 
the kind of stimulation, whether “normal” (ade- 
quate) or “abnormal” (inadequate). This given 
and innate specificity of the fiber is later on pro- 
jected, so to speak, to the brain. The system of 
brain cells is here regarded as being absolutely 
fixed in its single parts with regard to the fac- 
ulty of promoting sensations. 

This theory is no longer held to be absolutely 


PSYCHOPHYSICS 97 


true, at least as regards the single fibers or 
single brain cells. There seem to be important 
differences in the process of nerve irritation it- 
self, the same fiber being able to carry various 
stimulations, the same brain cell to give various 
sensations according to the way in which it is 
stimulated. This certainly holds in the range of 
one sense sphere, but perhaps the whole brain 
is “equipotential,” in the new-born child and is 
made different only in the way of functional 
adaptation.* 

But whatever may be the case, there remains 
a certain truth in Miller’s law, though a truth 
rather different from what Miller himself re- 
garded as true, and that is the following: 

Whether Miiller’s law be right, or whether it 
be partly or completely wrong, in any case it is a 
logical postulate, resting upon the principle of 
universal determination that any final definite 
state in the brain as a material system corre- 
sponds to a definite sensation as a conscious 
content. 

The ‘‘clepistic” final state in the brain is, 


1See my Philosophie des Organischen, 2nd edit., 1921, 
pp. 366 ff. 


98 THE CRISIS IN PSYCHOLOGY 


in modern terms, a certain definite arrange- 
ment and motion in a community of electrons. 
Whether, then, this state be the effect of a given 
potency being merely awakened by any kind 
of stimulus at all, as Miller supposed, or whether 
it be made what it is by a stimulation with spe- 
cific qualities, in any case this state as a definite 
status corresponds to some certain and definite 
sensation and to nothing else. This is the psycho- 
physical postulate of the theory of sensations. 


C. Sensations with a Spatial Characteristic 
Spatiality as such belongs, as we have found 
(page 14), to the material elements of what is 
consciously possessed and, therefore, cannot be 
dissolved or explained in any way. To this ex- 
tent so-called “‘nativism”’ is true. 

The local accents in the sphere of the sense of 
touch are “innate,” and so are all optical data 
with their accents “outside” and “long and 
wide,” and all kinesthetic data with their “three 
dimensions.” 

But so-called empiricism with regard to spa- 
tial experiences is also true in a certain respect, 
namely, with regard to details in the sphere of 


PSYCHOPHYSICS 99 


spatiality. For, though I have the meaning of 
outside in an innate way, I must learn about the 
“how far outside” and about the “one behind 
the other.” Much confusion arises in this field. 

Firstly: I never “see” an ordinary body, qua 
body, say my inkstand, though I have it con- 
sciously by the function of “meaning an empir- 
ical object in its singleness and quasi-indepen- 
dence” (page 85). Secondly: That immediate 
object by which I ‘‘mean” the mediate one, the 
inkstand, I do see; but this also is seen by me not 
in its three dimensions but only in two, 1.e., as a 
plane of specific color, form, and clearness. Its 
third dimension, the dimension of depth, I have, 
not in the optical, but in the kinesthetic way, 
namely, by having some bodily sensations in my 
eye as a whole in the way of “‘accommodation.” 
We are so accustomed to accommodation, that we 
are almost always tempted to believe that we see 
the third dimension, while as a matter of fact we 
merely have it kinesthetically. Also, while look- 
ing through a stereoscope we do not see the third 
dimension, though we have it; for in this case 
we accommodate also. 

Other means by which we learn to judge about 


100 THE CRISIS IN PSYCHOLOGY 


distance, besides accommodation, need not be 
mentioned here. Painters knowa good deal about 
such means—for example, that remote objects 
have a certain blue color, as we know from 
experience. 


D. Action 


The opposite of sensation is action. My body, 
while receptive in sensation, is also active. The 
one is the reverse of the other. Roughly speak- 
ing, there is, in sensation, the sequence: stimu- 
lus; irritation of sense organ, sense nerve, cen- 
ter; affection of mind, i.e., sensation; in action 
the sequence: “‘will’’; affection of brain center, 
motor-nerve, muscle. 

Again we should be careful to take this state- 
ment only for what it is, namely, an abbreviation 
of a complex of relations. In any case there ex- 
ists a functional dependence between my willing 
something and a certain state or event, practi- 
cally almost hypothetical, in a certain part of 
the brain of my body. When this is given, every- 
thing else is left to itself. 

The psychophysical postulate (page 98) in 


PSYCHOPHYSICS 101 


this case compels us to consider as univocal the 
relation between “will to do this” and “existence 
of this condition in the brain.” Thus the cor- 
responding reverse of what happened in sensa- 
tion is realized. 

But there are some complications, which, at 
least at first glance, render the comparison be- 
tween sensation and action a somewhat more 
difficult and complicated subject than sensation 
was. 

In the field of sensations I come into posses- 
sion of a fixed and definite content, say red, as 
soon as a fixed and definite part of my body’s 
brain has come into a certain condition, be it 
according to Johannes Miiller’s law or in a 
different way. But what do I will? To write a 
letter, for example, but not to move this muscle 
of my hand, nor to cause the innervation of a 
motor nerve or the irritation of a certain local- 
ity of the brain. I do not even know anything 
about those things unless I am a physiologist. 

We, therefore, must change to a certain ex- 
tent our whole conception of what happens in 
- psychophysical life in order to discover a simi- 


102 THE CRISIS IN PSYCHOLOGY 


larity between sensation and action—a reversed 
similarity, of course—and in order to bring the 
psychophysical problem of action to a solution 
at all. 

Let us, then, say in the first place with regard 
to sensation that it is not the “I have con- 
sciously red” that is the main point on the psy- 
chical side, but a certain state or condition of 
my (unconscious) soul of which “my” conscious 
content is a mere index. It is the state of my soul 
that ultimately stands in functional univocal 
correspondence with a certain state of my brain. 
And in volition it is again a certain state of my 
soul, of which my “willing something” is but an 
index, that is in functional correspondence with 
a certain state in my brain,—in the motor sphere 
this time. 

Thus the difficulties seem to disappear, includ- 
ing a difficulty with regard to sensation which 
we have not mentioned so far, namely, the fact 
that I see, say, a red flower outside in space, but 
do not see my optic brain center in a state of 
irritation. To this topic we shall return. 

There is, then, a double pair of functional 


PSYCHOPHYSICS 103 


correspondences, strictly speaking: The one be- 
tween state of brain and state of soul, the other 
between state of soul and conscious contents. 
This holds for both sensation and volition. To 
connect the conscious contents immediately 
with states of the brain leads to difficulties, espe- 
cially in the realm of volitions. 

Once more I lay great stress upon the point 
that, so far, we have spoken only of functional 
correspondence or dependence between psychical 
and physical states, but not of ‘“‘causality.”’ The 
problem as to whether causality exists between 
the physical and the psychical side of empirical 
reality or not, and what the relation between the 
two might be, if there is no causality, will be dis- 
cussed later. 

It has been our purpose to show that what we 
have called the psychophysical postulate can be 
made clear in the field of volition as well as of 
sensations. And this purpose has been fulfilled, 
it seems to me, at least in the most general 
outlines. 

So much concerning problems peculiar to 
psychophysics. Only a few of these problems 


104 THE CRISIS IN PSYCHOLOGY 


have, however, been mentioned. There has been 
omitted, for example, the question, much dis- 
cussed nowadays, whether complex external 
stimuli act upon the psychophysical entity as the 
mere swm oftheir parts, or as wholes. This ques- 
tion, which is very important, will be properly 
explained later in connection with a much wider 
problem. And there are many other problems 
that we have omitted intentionally. 

We might now proceed to the famous “‘mind- 
and-body” problem in general, 1.e., to the ques- 
tion whether, to put it in the usual form, there 
exists a “psychophysical parellelism” or a “‘psy- 
chophysical interaction,” were it not that a cer- 
tain very fundamental concept, and at the same 
time a very popular one, has so far not been used 
by us and has been mentioned only incidentally 
without going into details. That is the concept 
of the other Ego. 

As the establishment of this fundamental con- 
cept will make the following explanations much 
more simple and less artificial, so to speak, we 
now interrupt the treatment of psychophysics 
for a while, promising meanwhile to return to 
the subject on a broader basis. 


PSYCHOPHYSICS 105 


4, THE “OTHER EGO” 

That J am not the only conscious subject, but 
that there are many such subjects, not alone 
other human beings but also many animals, is 
regarded as a commonplace by almost all peo- 
ple; and among those who regard the existence 
of other Egos as self-evident are many scientists, 
even psychologists. It does not necessarily do 
any harm to their work if the latter do so look 
upon the matter in question. The psychologist 
needs as little to be critical, as does the physicist 
or chemist or biologist. But no scientist can 
claim to stand on a philosophical platform if he 
avoids criticism. 

Our aims in psychology are, however, de- 
cidedly philosophical. We are therefore not 
allowed to speak of ‘‘self-evidence” here. On the 
contrary, we are faced by a problem, and, in- 
deed, by a very important one. 

But we are not yet concerned with metaphys- 
ical problems in this part of the book. When we 
ask whether we are entitled or not to speak of 
the existence of other Egos, we understand the 
word “existence” in the empirical sense, 1.e., in 
the sense of the pure theory of order. 


106 THE CRISIS IN PSYCHOLOGY 


Are there, in the empirical sense of being, 
“subjects” among our “objects”? That is the 
question. 

It used to be the custom to deal with this 
question on the basis of analogy, and the whole 
problem, until lately, appeared to be a compara- 
tively simple one. It was argued: 

Here is my body in connection with, no matter 
what the nature of that connection may be, my 
soul and my conscious having. There is another 
body, very similar in form and behavior to my 
own. Therefore there is also a soul and a con- 
scious having in connection with it. Or, briefly: 
My body is to my soul and “having” as your 
body is to yours: b,:s, == be:2@. 

This rather primitive way of putting the 
matter takes it for granted that, with regard 
to “the other” we are able to know immediately 
something about his body and its behavior and 
about nothing else. This, in fact, seems a sound 
position to take as long as we are occupying the 
position of the man of pure science. And yet 
the problem is possibly not so simple. 

Theodor Lipps was the first to see difficulties 
in the way. 


PSYCHOPHYSICS 107 


The assumed relation: My body: my soul and 
my “having” == your body: your soul and your 
“having”’ is, he says, by no means correct. For 
“your soul” and “your having” is not in any 
way a clear concept. In any case its conceiving 
requires a particular faculty of myself, which 
Lipps calls Einftihlung, a term used rather often 
in esthetics. We may translate it by introfeeling. 
I project myself into the alien body and then de- 
nominate by the short word “you” the rather 
complex idea: “I could imagine being connected 
with that alien body. If my body would show 
such movements as the other does, I should pos- 
sess such and such conscious contents.” 


*? it seems to me, 


But the word “introfeeling, 
does not carry us very far forward. 

After Lipps, Scheler advanced the theory of 
the immediate perception of the “‘you.”’ Not by 
the aid of our sense organs of course, but by a 
certain inner “‘sense” we possess, or, as he put 
it, the faculty of “‘perceiving” immediately the 
other Ego in its distinct singleness. Later on 
Scheler modified this theory, accepting only 
immediate aprioristic knowledge about what 
might be called mental or spiritual otherness in 


108 THE CRISIS IN PSYCHOLOGY 


general. Not the “‘you” in this special case is im- 
mediately perceived, he now said, but on the 
occasion of perceiving another organic body 
and its behavior we apply, so to speak, the 
aprioristic category of mental you-ness, and 
then say: ‘There is a you.” This theory resem- 
bles very closely that of J. Volkelt, who speaks 
of an original you-certainty (Urspriingliche 
Du-Gewissheit) which is, not explicitly, but im- 
plicitly, innate in the same sense in which all 
categories may be called innate.’ 

What, then, is our own opinion about the 
subject? 

Certainly there are some kinds of original 
feelings that have what may be called and has 
been called a cognitive function. Moral feeling 
is the strongest and most important of these; 
for it certainly goes beyond the “I,” and im- 
plicitly refers to the “other.”’ Indeed, it is mean- 
ingless and senseless without this latent implica- 
tion. It is, like instinct, directed, not towards a 
particular object, but towards a certain possible 
group of objects that have the form of mentality. 


2 Literature in my Ordnungslehre, 2nd edit., 1923, pp. 
371 Ff. 


PSYCHOPHYSICS 109 


In this sense we might agree with Scheler’s 
fiction of the ‘tnew Robinson,” but in this sense 
only. Imagine a new Robinson, Scheler tells us, 
ie., a human being, who from babyhood has 
lived alone on an island, deprived of all associa- 
tion with men and animals. Such a being would 
know that he forms part of a spiritual commun- 
ity without any experience, and, when he saw an 
organic being for the first time, he would call it 
at once a you. The transsubjective innate logical 
scheme would be filled with content. 

I think this is true. But Scheler goes still fur- 
ther and tries to separate the category of ‘‘you- 
ness” from the category of morality. In order 
to see whether this is possible or not let us study 
the strange faculty of understanding the expres- 
sion of other faces and the faculty of imitation. 
These faculties have by no means been studied 
to the extent they undoubtedly deserve. 

It seems, in fact, as if the young human child, 
the real “baby,” possesses the ability, firstly, to 
interpret the expression of the faces of other 
people with regard to the feelings they repre- 
sent, and, secondly, to imitate in its own face 
what it has seen. Both abilities are quite wonder- 


110 THE CRISIS IN PSYCHOLOGY 


ful and not very easy to explain by ordinary 
methods. 

The faculty of interpretation may be ex- 
plained, however, in some such way as this: 
When the mother smiled the baby got something 
good; when she looked angry, it was, perhaps, 
beaten. But even this would not explain the in- 
trojection of a feeling into the mother. 

But the faculty of imitation is not even “‘ex- 
plainable” in part. The baby has seen other 
faces smiling but never his own; and yet it can 
imitate smiling, nay, quite specific movements 
of a face which it has seen, as, for instance, roll- 
ing out the tongue, and pouting the mouth. And 
even if it had seen its own face smiling or rolling 
the tongue or pouting the mouth, how can it 
know how all this is motorially performed? 

There seems to be an innate faculty of re- 
acting to stimuli of a certain definite form or 
rhythm by actions of the same form or rhythm, 
though the stimuli, of course, belong to the 
sense, the actions to the motor, field. This innate 
faculty of correspondence between mere forms 
and rhythms exists only in a most general and 


PSYCHOPHYSICS Lat 


schematic way, as a general impetus or quasi- 
instinct, we may say. As an example, think also 
of the strong impetus you feel to move your feet 
or fingers in a rhythmical way, whenever you 
hear music. 

If now we turn back to the problem of “the 
other Ego” we may say that in the general 
faculty of imitation something is present that 
refers to otherness in general and, as far as the 
understanding of the other face’s expression is 
concerned, to other psychophysical beings in 
particular. 

We possess, it seems, a sort of dim instinctive 
knowledge of general “‘you-ness” in a primordial 
way, and it is on the foundation of this quasi- 
categorical aprioristic knowledge as well as on 
the foundation of analogy that we conclude that 
there are particular other Egos, connected with 
the bodies of other human beings and of animals ; 
or, that there are subjects among our (empir- 
ical) objects. 

The analogy theory is not wrong, but it is in- 
complete. It requires the general sphere of “‘spir- 
itual otherness,” a category of “region,” as 


112 THE CRISIS IN PSYCHOLOGY 


Husserl might say, just as special geometrical 
forms require the general sphere of space, and 
as the specific “local accents” of our sensations 
of being touched all refer to the general sphere 
my body’s surface. 

So much, then, concerning what may be called 
the psychogenesis of the concept of the other 
Ego. Much is still in question, but it seems that 
we are on the way to a solution. 

We now have to do with a rather different 
question, namely: What does the concept of 
“other Ego” mean logically, i.e., as a concept of 
order, which it certainly is. This problem of the 
logical and epistemological significance of a con- 
cept is very different from the psychogenetic 
one. The psychogenetic theory of a concept may 
be what it will, but the logical character of the 
concept as such, its meaning in the realm of a 
theory of order, is not thereby disclosed. 

In order to find out the real logical or order- 
ing essence of the concept other Ego, we must 
not forget that we have already established 
critically the two concepts of nature, or empir- 
ical reality in space (page 70), and of my soul 


| 
) 
| 
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PSYCHOPHYSICS 113 


as the unconscious foundation of my consciously 
having. On the foundation of these concepts our 
present problem is not very difficult to solve. 

Nature was found to be the community of 
those mediate distinct objects in space or in re- 
lation to space which are meant by immediate 
objects as if they (the mediate objects) were 
independent in their being and becoming. My 
soul was found not to contain very clearly single 
distinct objects; in any case we were unable to 
discover such objects in detail. But my soul 
as a whole was also a something, of an uncon- 
scious and non-spatial kind, of course, that was 
“meant” by immediate indexes as if it had being 
and becoming in itself. It is to be noted that the 
words “‘as if,” as used here, exclude any sort of 
metaphysics. 

We are now well prepared to tell what the 
concepts other Ego and other mind mean: 

The organisms, in particular human beings 
and animals, are mediate or empirical objects of 
nature, regarded as if they were independent in 
their being and becoming, and as if they were 
standing in mutual functional dependence with 


114 THE CRISIS IN PSYCHOLOGY 


a something that is like my soul and my Ego. 
This is what is meant whenever the term “‘other”’ 
psychical being is used. The double as if is 
important. 

We now have, in the sense explained, psychical 
subjects among our (empirical) objects. We 
must have these subjects, of course, for our deal- 
ings with history, sociology and even, in part, 
biology. After this we may therefore speak of 
many souls, and not only of my soul, as before. 
This will give to our whole discussion a greater 
freedom of expression. We may express our- 
selves at least as if the boundaries of pure solip- 
sism were broken—although they are, of course, 
not broken in the real sense. 

But before dealing with the nature of souls 
in general we have to pay our last tribute to 
psychophysics, which we have left facing its 
greatest problem: Mind-and-body. 

What, then, shall we be able to say about the 
question implied to these words? Shall we be 
able to say anything more than that there is 
merely a “functional mutual dependence” be- 
tween body and mind, the word functional again 
being taken in the neutral mathematical sense, 


PSYCHOPHYSICS 115 


and not as suggesting the concept of causality? 


5. MIND AND BODY 


A. The Theory of Psychomechanical Parallelism 


During the last few decades of the nineteenth 
century the official theory as to the relation be- ~ 
tween mind and body was the theory of so-called 
psychophysical parallelism. Recently this theory 
has been attacked from many different sides, to 
the extent that at the present day it has been 
almost universally given up. 

The parallelistic theory of the relation be- 
tween mind and body maintains that there is no 
state or event in the soul and, therefore, no con- 
scious state either,® which is not accompanied 
by physicochemical or, in short, mechanical 
states or events in the brain, the latter being 
regarded as a true mechanical system. The term 
psychomechanical parallelism is preferable for 
what is really meant. 

It should be stated, however, that there are 
varieties of parallelism: There are some psychol- 


8 Conscious “events” do not exist, as we know. I merely 
have consciously. 


116 THE CRISIS IN PSYCHOLOGY 


ogists who reject the concept of the unconscious- 
psychical and who hold the view that only psy- 
chical states of the conscious form have their 
parallels in states of the brain, there being no 
psychical events, as there is no “unconscious” 
psychical sphere. On this basis the continuity 
of the psychical breaks down completely; it is 
nothing but an addition, a rather luxurious 
one at that, to certain states of a given dynamic 
mechanism. The name Epiphenomenalism has 
been given to this theory. The main thing is the 
brain and the mechanical events in it; only here 
is there becoming and causality. 

Parapsychism is another form of parallelism. 
In this variety the statement of ordinary paral- 
lelism is enlarged. Nothing on the psychical side 
without its mechanical parallel, but also nothing 
physical without psychical correspondence. 

This specific theory generally forms part of 
a metaphysical system. But it must be stated, 
once for all, that by themselves all varieties of 
parallelism may be taken quite unmetaphysic- 
ally—in other words, they are compatible with 
every epistemological standpoint and need not 
be taken metaphysically. We shall now try to 


PSYCHOPHYSICS 117 


find out what may be called the roots or sources 
of psychomechanical parallelism, i.e., the rea- 
sons, historical as well as logical, that have led 
to its being a widely accepted theory. 

Historically the philosophy of Spinoza is the 
father of parallelism. For Spinoza, as is well 
known, there exists one last substance with two | 
“attributes,” extensio and cogitatio. This sub- 
stance is pictured as it were, equally well by the 
totality of the “modi” in the realm of each at- 
tribute. That means that the totality of all 
states and events in space and the totality of all 
psychical states and events illustrate the sub- 
stance equally well and completely. In the last 
resort we have to do with “one and the same 
thing, expressed in two different manners.’ For 
this reason, then, there is correspondence be- 
tween the realms of the Katended and the Think- 
ing, but not interaction. 

We now come to the first of the logical sources 
of parallelism. It stands in close relation to the 
reasons which have made Spinozism its father. 
Only on the foundation of psychomechanical 


parallelism would a mechanical system be with- 
4 Una eademque res, sed duobis modis expressa. 


118 THE CRISIS IN PSYCHOLOGY 


out any gap; and, on the other hand, Spinozism 
is the most complete and coherent metaphysical 
foundation of any theory of natural mechanism. 

Certainly, the universe would appear most 
simple if we were able to regard nature in this 
way. But, certainly also, simplicity is not an 
absolute criterion of truth. We are only allowed 
to say: Let us accept mechanism, on the guiding 
principle of simplicity, if we can, but if we can- 
not, then let us reject it. Geometry also would 
be more simple if there were only two dimensions 
of space, but there és the third dimension. 

There is, finally, another logical root of the 
parallelistic theory, i.e., another logical argu- 
ment in favor of it. This has been acquired 
through analogy: 

We have discussed the psychophysical postu- 
late in the realm of sensation and volition. Ac- 
cording to this postulate: However we conceive 
the function of nervous conduction and brain 
irritation, whether along the lines of Johannes 
Miller or in a different way, in any case there 
is, In sensation, a univocal relation between a 
certain distinct final material state in the brain 
and a definite sensation, and, in volition, between 





PSYCHOPHYSICS 119 


a definite state of my soul (the index of which is 
my having a certain will) and a certain distinct 
first material state in a definite part of the so- 
called motor-spheres of the brain. 

From these facts, resting on an a priori 
foundation, certain authors have drawn the con- 
clusion that the same sort of univocal corre- | 
spondence that exists between the final material 
brain state and sensation on the one hand, and 
between volition and first material state of the 
brain on the other hand, must be present with 
regard to every something which I consciously 
have, whether a feeling, a thought, or anything 
else. Also, the unconscious psychical processes 
that connect the conscious states are also believed 
to have their physical parallel in events inside 
the brain, the latter being considered a me- 
chanical system. 

Of course, the question of the possibility of 
various forms of the parallelistic theory here 
comes upon the scene again. In fact there are 
some who deny unconscious psychical becoming 
altogether, and who regard the conscious states 
both as epiphenomena to the mechanical cere- 
bral states, and as lacking any real connection 


120 THE CRISIS IN PSYCHOLOGY 


inter se. But epiphenomenalism is not a neces- 
sary consequence of the hypothesis in question, 
which certainly may also be taken in the original 
Spinozistic sense. 

Let us, then, analyze this important problem 
in greater detail. We ask: Is it possible to carry 
through the analogy in question? Is it really 
true that, on the foundation of the “postulate” 
of psychophysics, which, no doubt, holds good 
for sensation (or perception) and volition, every 
single conscious content of inner life has its 
“parallel” in a certain material state of the me- 
chanical system called my brain? 

It may be that by answering this question we 
shall also be able to solve the problem as to 
what sort the so-called “functional univocal 
mutual dependence” between mind and brain in 
sensation and volition may be, 1.e., whether it 
must remain merely “functional” or acquire a 
more particular character. 

We may put it this way: We believe that we 
are able to show that the analogy in question 
does not hold for the states of inner psychical 
life and that, besides, it is possible to put in the 
place of the word ‘‘functional” a more definite 


PSYCHOPHYSICS 121 


expression, though not, perhaps, the much too 
simple phrase psychophysical ‘“interaction.” 

We shall begin with simple and indefinite 
topics and shall proceed to complex and definite 
arguments against psychomechanical parallel- 
ism. Or, in other words, we shall begin with mere 
indicia and shall proceed to real proofs. 

In the first place, then, we are discussing 
merely the difficulties of the usual “‘parallelism.” 
It will soon appear that we have at hand the 
materials for a solution of our problem. We 
need merely use what we have learned before. 


B. Arguments and Proofs against Parallelism 

1. Memory images and originals compared. 

If psychomechanical parallelism were true, we 
ought to expect that there would be a strict cor- 
respondence, a sort of photographic identity, 
between memory images and their originals, 1.e., 
perceptions. There might perhaps be certain 
gaps in the image, compared with the original, 
but nothing else. For, if the image is conditioned 
materially just as was the original, then the ad- 
vocate of the mechanistic theory must assume 
that the image is dependent on the same material 


122 THE CRISIS IN PSYCHOLOGY 


state as the original, and that it owes its pecu- 
liarities in content to the same sort of material 
stimulation as the conscious original did, al- 
though the stimulation may be weaker. But we 
know from further discussions (page 65) that 
such an identity is by no means the case. There 
are not only gaps in the image, when compared 
with the original, but the original has been 
spoiled and distorted; it is an incorrect copy, 
and yet it is individual in itself. 

From this fact we have drawn the conclusion 
that the unconscious X or, as we are now en- 
titled to say, the soul, does not re-produce, but 
produces. We may now add to this statement 
that it is hardly possible to infer a mechanistic 
analogy for something which is production and 
not mere reproduction. 

The parallelistic theory, in this case, might 
possibly be saved by additional hypotheses. In 
any case there is a difficulty, and we need not 
say more. For, on the basis of the theory, we 
ought to expect “photography,” with certain 
gaps in the copy perhaps, and this does not 
exist. 





PSYCHOPHYSICS 123 


i. The recognition of the same in various abso- 
lute expressions. 

Imagine any melody you know well, say the 
beginning of a movement of a symphony of 
Beethoven. The melody will be recognized as the 
same even if you hear it in a different key. A 
picture you know well will be recognized as the 
same if you see a small photograph of it. ‘T'wo 
pictures, one in red and one in blue, are also the 
same picture. | 

Here we meet another great difficulty of paral- 
lelism as conceived mechanically, and at the same 
time we meet the problem of individualized stim- 
uli or form-stimuli (Gestaltreize-Ehrenfels), 
which is much discussed nowadays, and which 
will occupy us at greater length later on. 

According to parallelism the first hearing or 
seeing of the melody or the picture would impress 
the brain in a certain definite way, so as to make 
a definite engramma (Semon) upon it, and the 
process of recognition, of saying “‘the same,” 
would depend on the stimulation of this very 
engramma. But the stimulus must engrave an- 


124 THE CRISIS IN PSYCHOLOGY 


other engramma into the brain, if it is offered 
the second time on a very different scale, be it 
musically or geometrically or with regard to 
color! 

The difficulty becomes even greater if we call 
to mind the results of a fine experiment carried 
out by E. Becher. Becher arranged his experi- 
ment in the following way: He presents to the 
eye of a person a certain small figure, say, an 
arrow, in such a way that the irritation of the 
retina is clearly localized. Then, the second time, 
he presents the arrow again, but the person to 
whom it is shown is told to keep the eye firmly 
fixed, and arrangements are made so that this 
time another locality of the retina is stimulated. 
In spite of this the person says: This is the same 
arrow I saw before. 

What about engrammata in this case? They 
are certainly in different localities. And yet the 
person says: “the same.” But in this case also 
parallelism in its usual form might be saved by 
certain additional hypotheses and, therefore, we 
do not speak of proof, but merely of an “‘indica- 
tion” against parallelism. 


PSYCHOPHYSICS 125 


il. The insufficiency of the association theory. 

We know already that the theory of associa- 
tion is not sufficient to explain what really hap- 
pens in inner psychic life (page 50). Mechanical 
parallelism could only use this theory to explain 
what happens along its psychical “parallel.” 
Its physical “parallel” works mechanically, and 
the association theory is the only one in accord- 
ance with which the psychical side would, by 
analogy, work in the same way. This, of course, 
is perhaps even more than a mere “difficulty” for 
parallelism. 

An argument rather often heard against par- 
allelism is that on the basis of this theory life 
would be deprived of all charm and pleasure. It 
is asked: What about the “value” of history, 
art and ethics, if psychical life is only parallel 
to the action of a mechanical automaton? This, 
however, is an argument ad hominem, but not a 
scientific argument, and therefore we merely 
mention it. 

Others say that consciousness becomes super- 
fluous on the parallelistic basis. But perhaps it 
is a mere luxury. Who knows? The problem, 


126 THE CRISIS IN PSYCHOLOGY 


whether it is or not, must be decided scientific- 
ally, and the decision would have to be accepted 
even if it were disagreeable. 

And to the argument that, on the theory of 
parallelism, history would be, without conscious- 
ness, what it now is, we may simply answer that, 
as the universe is, consciousness exists, and that 
the universe exists only once. It is nonsense to 
speak of another “possible” universe. 

Thus the arguments ad hominem may be left 
to themselves. What is important and scientific 
in them narrows down to the point that the 
association-theory does not explain the origin 
of the need, in science, religion and ethics. 

Most of the ad hominem arguments, by the 
way, do not relate to the parallelistic theory in 
particular, but to the much more general prob- 
lem of determinism, which, as we shall see, might 
be true even if mechanistic parallelism is wrong. 
And consciousness proper might also be “super- 
fluous” upon an anti-mechanistic basis. 


iv. Action as a non-mechanical natural 
phenomenon. 
We now proceed from mere anti-parallelistic 


a 


PSYCHOPHYSICS 127 


arguments or indicia to real proofs of the im- 
possibility of the parallelistic theory. These 
proofs are of two very different kinds. In the 
first place we shall investigate whether a neces- 
sary consequence of psychomechanical paral- 
lelism is realized or not. We shall show that it is 
not. In the second place we shall compare the 
very essence of “the physical” and “the psy- 
chical,” or of nature and mind, with one another, 
and shall be able to prove that this comparison 
makes the theory of parallelism absolutely and 
definitively fall through. 

First, then, we have to do with a certain con- 
sequence of the theory. 

Parallelism, as understood so far, pretends to 
be a psychomechanical parallelism. This implies, 
of course, that the physical “‘parallel” is of the 
type of mechanical states and events. The 
actions of men are the point in question, re- 
garded as natural events. If, therefore, we can 
show that the action of man, regarded as a 
physical event, cannot be a mechanical event, 
parallelism in its usual form is disproved and 
refuted. For, according to a fundamental logical 
principle of the theory of conclusions, he who 


128 THE CRISIS IN PSYCHOLOGY 


proves that a consequence of a theory is not 
realized, proves at the same time that the theory 
is wrong. 

The “‘consequence” in question, then, is the 
nature of human action as a physical process. 
Can this be explained mechanically or can it 
not? If not, mechanistic parallelism breaks 
down. 

Quite intentionally we are here entering the 
field of the science of nature. All science of na- 
ture has to do with matter in motion and with 
nothing else. Matter in motion may follow me- 
chanical or vital principles; for, in saying that 
a “system”—to use the expression common to 
physics—is a material one, nothing is said about 
its being mechanical or not. This is a separate 
question. 

It is not very easy to regard the “acting 
man” from the point of view of pure natural sci- 
ence. We are too much accustomed to regard 
him at the same time as a psychical being also. 
But we are not allowed, in this chapter, to do 
this. The acting man, to us, is “matter in mo- 
tion.”” What laws govern the motion? This alone 
is our problem. All psychological concepts, 


PSYCHOPHYSICS 129 


therefore, have to be excluded; we are not, 
for instance, allowed to speak of ‘‘memory,” 
“understanding,” etc. 

As I have fully dealt with this problem in my 
Science and Philosophy of the Organism I may 
be allowed to discuss the whole problem here in 
a curtailed way. 

We make a sharp distinction between faculty 
of acting and realization of this very action at 
this very moment, and shall first discuss the one, 
then the other. 

How is the faculty of acting of a given human 
being at a given time of his life to be character- 
ized? On what, we may also ask, does this faculty 
depend, if by “faculty” we mean the sum total 
of all actions which this man might carry out at 
this given time? 

The answer is that his specific faculty of act- 
ing has been historically acquired. It, in fact, 
depends on everything that has happened to the 
“material system” in question, namely, the man; 
it depends on his individual life-history with all 
its contingencies. Take, for instance, a baby: 
You know that this baby can be ‘“‘made” a man 
who speaks English, or German, or French, or 


180 THE CRISIS IN PSYCHOLOGY 


Chinese, or Russian according to circumstances. 
In the common expression, we say that he 
“learns,” that he has “memory” and acquires 
“‘experience.”’ But we are not allowed to use these 
words, by self-restriction at this point, and must 
therefore put it neutrally. 

The faculty of acting represents a historic- 
ally acquired basis for future reactions; or, in 
short, historical basis of reactions is the first 
criterion of acting, relating to possibilities. 

Now it will probably be said that this is just 
what mechanism requires. For there is a well- 
known machine, the phonograph, which also re- 
acts on a “historically acquired basis,” its reac- 
tions depending on what it had received in the 
past. This is quite true, and yet we should not 
care to say that an acting man is about the same 
as a phonograph. Perhaps we might say that an 
actor on the stage or a schoolboy reciting a 
poem has a certain similarity to a phonograph. 
But the man “‘acting” in the ordinary way, say 
during a conservation, in which he ‘“‘asks” and 
“answers,” is different certainly from the actor 
and the schoolboy. 

What, then, is this difference and at the same 


PSYCHOPHYSICS 131 


time, in even a stronger sense, the difference be- 
_ tween the acting man and a phonograph? The 
difference is this: The phonograph throws back 
in their very specificity all the specific events it 
has received, while the man in action may resolve 
the specificities received into their elements and 
produce new specificities out of them. The | 
phonograph, therefore, though also endowed 
with an historical basis of reaction in a certain 
sense, has a strictly specified basis, while man 
possesses a basis that may properly be called: 
specified without strict limitation. 

We pause for a moment and ask whether there 
exist in the inorganic world machines endowed 
with a basis of reaction which is historically ac- 
quired by chance, and the elements of which 
may be newly combined in future reactions. We 
do not know of any such “machines.” But we 
do not lay much stress upon our not knowing, 
for the present, and prefer to go on with the 
analysis. 

We now have to do not with a faculty of 
acting in general, but with the realization of this 
very acting at this very moment. How is it char- 
acterized? On what does it depend? 


182 THE CRISIS IN PSYCHOLOGY 


Action is a reaction to a stimulus on the part 
of an organism, consisting in motions and rest- 
ing upon a basis of faculties acquired by the indi- 
vidual history of the performer. This is what we 
know, so far: Let us now study the stimulus and 
the motion reaction, which are in question, a 
little more in detail. This may bring us to the 
discovery of a sound characteristic of action, as 
far as it is not only possible, but realized. 

Stimuli and reactions are almost always not 
simple, but complex. This means that the stimu- 
lus does not consist in one single ‘seen’ or 
“heard” quality, and the answer to the stimulus 
not in the contraction of one single muscle, but 
stimuli as well as reactions are combinations of 
singularities. What, now, about the relation in 
which both combinations stand with regard to 
one another? 

In the inorganic world we also meet compli- 
cated systems standing in mutual causal rela- 
tion. But the sum total of causality, starting, 
say, from system A and affecting system B, is 
pressed together, as it were, into what is usually 
called the resultant. The same resultant may 


PSYCHOPHYSICS 133 


“result” from very varied complications, the best 
illustration of this concept being given by New- 
ton’s principle of the parallelogram of forces. 
And, on the other hand, we are not able to learn, 
from our knowledge of a given resultant, from 
what combination it has come. To put it briefly: 
In mechanics all details or singularities of cau- 
sality disappear in the resultant. 

So much about what might be called “stimuli” 
of mechanically combined systems. In order, now, 
to study the stimuli concerned in action we had 
best start with a concrete instance, say a con- 
versation between two friends. 

We easily see that the concept of a resultant, 
in which all details disappear, does not come into 
account here. Take, for instance, the action- 
stimulus expressed in the words My mother ar- 
rived this morning. Of course, what the “stimu- 
lus” is here, in the strict sense of the word, is 
the physical sequence of air vibrations corre- 
sponding to the phrase in question ; for we study 
action from the point of view of science, as we 
know, and not psychologically. We may say, 
then, that in action the physical resultant of the 


1384 THE CRISIS IN PSYCHOLOGY 


physical stimulus does not play any role what- 
ever; that, on the contrary, the details of the 
complex stimulus are of importance. 

But in what sense? Certainly not in isolation, 
but with regard to the proper and specific place 
in which they stand in respect of the total stimu- 
lus. For, on the one hand, instead of being My 
mother arrived this morning, the stimulus might 
have been Meine Mutter kam heute Morgen an, 
or Ma mere arrive ce matin, without changing 
the effect, if it be supposed that the person ad- 
dressed in the conversation has a particular sort 
of “historical basis,” or, to put it less technic- 
ally, that he “understands” German and French 
as well as English. On the other hand, My mother 
arrwwed, etc., and My brother arrived, etc., are by 
no means equivalent stimuli nor are Meine Mut- 
ter, etc., and Deine Mutter, etc., Ma mére, etc., 
and T'a mére, etc., though these stimuli, in each 
instance, differ only in avery small detail, namely 
with regard to one character (br for m, d for m, 
t form). | 

Thus the result gained so far is this: 

There is, firstly, no resultant in the mechan- 


PSYCHOPHYSICS 135 


ical sense that might play a réle in the complex 
stimuli of actions, but the details of the complex 
stimuli are important as details. Secondly, 
though details have this specific significance, 
they possess this significance only according to 
where they stand in the totality of the stimulus. 
And what holds of stimuli, holds of reactions, 
also, as illustrated by a conversation between 
two friends: The one side consists of “words 
heard,” the other of “words spoken.” 

To sum up, then, let us say that, in action, 
stimuli as well as reactions are wholes or indi- 
viduals, for the concept of wholeness or individu- 
ality—an indefinable concept, by the way—is 
just what covers the field here. 

The main feature that characterizes the reali- 
zation of action may now be called the principle 
of the individuality of correspondence between 
cause and effect. 

If, for a moment, we may apply psychological 
terms for the relation in question, we can say, of 
course, that in action the stimuli are understood 
and the reactions have a “‘meaning’’; that an 


English, German and French phrase may have 


186 THE CRISIS IN PSYCHOLOGY 


the same “meaning” fora person who “knows” 
these languages, and that meanings are the 
things “corresponding” with one another. 

We now have everything we want: Action is a 
natural phenomenon that rests upon an historical 
basis acquired by chance and dissolvable into 
elements which may be newly combined, and that 
shows the characteristics of an individual cor- 
respondence to individual stimuli. Action, then, 
cannot be dissolved mechanically, i.e., it is not 
a mere swm or a mere resultant. It is, firstly, not 
true that the singularities of the stimuli are re- 
lated to the singularities of the effect, and it is 
not true, secondly, that the stimulus acts as a 
mechanical resultant. These are the characteris- 
tics of mechanical becoming. Acting, therefore, 
regarded as a natural phenomenon, is not me- 
chanical. 'The correct theory of action, therefore, 
strengthens the vitalistic theory of life, indeed, 
it is itself a chapter of this story. 

We have only given a short account here of 
the theory of acting. The reader may refer to 
my broader discussion in the Gifford Lectures, 
or Leib und Seele, if he wishes to know more 
about details. 


en 


PSYCHOPHYSICS 137 


Let me finally say a few words on the problem 
of instinct. 

Might it not be that we could find a proof of 
the autonomy of life and, therefore, of the im- 
possibility of psychomechanical parallelism here 
also? This certainly might be the outcome, but 
instincts, at the present day, have unfortunately 
not been analysed so carefully as to permit real 
proof. 

Instinctive reactions are complex motions 
which do not rest upon an “historical basis” 
acquired by the individual. This is the main fea- 
ture which distinguishes them from action. In- 
stinctive reactions are perfect from the very 
beginning; they cannot be “improved” at least 
with regard to their specificity, though they 
may be, perhaps, with regard to the velocity with 
which they are performed. These brief remarks 
on instincts are written only to avoid misunder- 
standing. 

In this chapter we have, for the first defi- 
nitely refuted the accepted idea of parallelism, 
by showing that a thing which is a necessary 
consequence of this hypothesis is not true. Action 
ought to be mechanical according to parallel- 


1388 THE CRISIS IN PSYCHOLOGY 


ism; but it is not. Therefore parallelism is un- 
true. It might be asked, then: What is “true’’? 
However, we are not concerned with this ques- 
tion at this point. We have first to attack paral- 
lelism once more, from a different angle. Only 
after this has been done shall we proceed to posi- 
tive statements. 


v. The physical and the psychical compared. 

In this section we shall not study a conse- 
quence of parallelism, but shall analyse what 
may be called “the matter itself,’ in order to 
find whether parallelism is right or not. 

What, then, is “‘the matter itself’? It con- 
cerns, it seems to me, the question what ‘“‘the 
physical’ and “the psychical” are in their very 
essence. These two “essences,” it seems, ought to 
be comparable in their most intimate structure, 
in order that ordinary parallelism should be 
possible—though even then it might not yet be 
true. Let us see on this ground whether we are 
not able to exclude the “possibility” of the the- 
ory in question. 

By essence of the physical we mean the most 


PSYCHOPHYSICS 139 


essential characteristics of the ultimate type of 
inorganic being and becoming. By essence of 
the psychical we mean the most essential char- 
acteristics in this realm. But what shall we take 
as the psychical? The unconscious, or the con- 
scious, or both? 

Now there cannot. be any doubt that in the 
sense of the theory of ordinary phychomechanical 
parallelism, the concept of “the psychical” must 
exclusively be taken as meaning “the conscious.” 
This is the “object” that comes at once under 
discussion; to “the conscious” alone does the 
usual theory of parallelism refer. For there are 
many parallelists who deny altogether the ex- 
istence of the “unconscious psychical.” 

The psychical, then, in the sense of the con- 
scious, is one of the objects of our analysis. This 
object, of course, must be analysed as it is, and 
not as it ought to be according to the wishes of 
certain parallelists. This seems self-evident. But 
it must be mentioned because, strange but true, 
there have been parallelists who do not regard 
the conscious as it is, with respect to the ele- 
ments found in its sphere, but who construct a 


140 THE CRISIS IN PSYCHOLOGY 


psychical world hypothetically, which world then 
meets very well the parallelistic requirements 
without regard for the facts. 


(1). The general structural type in the phys- 

ical and the psychical. 

The general structure of the physical differs 
in a most fundamental way from the structure 
of the psychical. Everything that belongs to na- 
ture is near to some other thing in space, the 
relation near to, in fact, being the most funda- 
mental physical relation. The psychical, i.e., 
conscious objects, are, on the other hand, cen- 
tralized. They are all related to one ‘“‘point,” as 
it were,—the Ego. This difference in general 
structure is fundamental, and it is scarcely 
understandable how two communities with such 
structural difference as described could be “the 
same” at bottom. 

Let us not forget, however, that the word 
“centralized” describes the structure of the 
psychical only by analogy, but we have no better 
word. The fact is that there exists a far greater 
difference than the one expressed by the words 
“near” and “centralized,” for the latter word 


PSYCHOPHYSICS 141 


still suggests a certain modality of nearness, and 
there is no “‘nearness” at all in the psychical. 
Language here shows its insufficiency in the face 


of psychological facts. 


(2). The degree of manifoldness in the phys- 

ical and the psychical world. 

The word ‘*‘manifoldness” finds its first appli- 
cation in pure logic. One concept has a higher 
degree of manifoldness than another concept 
when more elemental, i.e., more indefinable con- 
cepts are necessary to define the first than to 
define the second. But we may apply the con- 
cepts of manifoldness and its degrees to empir- 
ical objects as well, i.e., to “somethings” which 
have a quasi-independent being and becoming. 
A lion, for instance, has a higher degree of mani- 
foldness than a homogeneous sphere of iron. 

Let us now apply the concept “degree of 
manifoldness” to the physical and the psychical 
worlds, not, however, to all details of these 
worlds, but to their essence, i.e., to that which 
makes them ‘‘physical” or “‘psychical.” 

Modern physics and chemistry tell us that all 
material bodies are composed of three elemental 


142 THE CRISIS IN PSYCHOLOGY 


constituents: protons, negative electrons, and 
ether. This, of course, is true only for a mechan- 
istic view of all nature; if we accept vitalism, as 
we are, in my opinion, forced to do, other ele- 
mentalities enter the field of nature as far as 
organic life is concerned. But we stand, ex 
hypothesi, on the ground of mechanism, for we 
are criticising psychomechanical parallelism. 
There are some physicists who believe that there 
is only one kind of element in physical nature, 
namely, the ether, and that the electrons are 
certain permanent dynamic states of it. But let 
us assume that there are three kinds of elements. 
For we must not avoid difficulties in our argu- 
ment against parallelism; and we undoubtedly 
make it more difficult for ourselves if we accept 
three as the number of ultimate constituents in 
mechanical nature. 

What, now, is the degree of manifoldness in 
the psychical? Our work is easy here, for we 
already have all we want, if only we go back to 
an earlier part of this book, namely, to the the- 
ory of materials and, in particular, to the theory 
of elements (page 12). 


PSYCHOPHYSICS 143 


We have established six classes of real ‘‘ele- 
mentaries,” which are consciously had: 


I. Qualities or pure “suchnesses” (red, 
warm, sweet, white, re, etc.) 
II. Space and time data 
III. Pleasure and discomfort accents 
IV. Elemental signs of order or significances 
(this, not, related, etc.) 
V. Accents of truth (in order, not in order, 
already known, etc.) 
VI. Accents of the sphere of existence (mere- 
ly had, belonging to phantasy, to reality, 
to a dream, etc.) 


Thus we find not less than six groups of ele- 
ments—probably even more, for I may have 
overlooked some—in the psychical world, each 
group containing many species, while in the 
physical world we find three species at the most. 

This, now, is a definite argument against 
psychomechanical parallelism and really refutes 
it as a possible theory. If two communities pos- 
sess not only a very different general structure, 


144 THE CRISIS IN PSYCHOLOGY 


but also a very different degree of manifoldness 
with regard to the characteristics of which they 
consist, it is an absurdity to assume that they 
are bottom una eademque res, sed duobus modis 
expressa (Spinoza), i.e., one and the same thing, 
expressed in two ways. 

But there is still a hiatus in our argument, 
which the reader perhaps will have noticed. Have 
we not overlooked something in the realm of 
mechanical nature? There are three kinds of ele- 
ments. But is there not an enormous variety of 
relations among these elements in the sphere of 
space? The electrons may have the arrangements 
of a triangle, or of a square, or of a cube; and 
they move along a circle, or a parabola, etc. 

No doubt this is true. It seems, at first glance, 
to be a serious difficulty for us, but only at first 
glance. 

The degree of manifoldness on the physical 
side is augmented by one rectification. Instead 
of the degree 3 we now have the degree 3 + a, 
a marking the enormous variety of all possible 
spatial relations. On the psychical side we had 
the degree of manifoldness n, and we were sure 
that nis greater than 3 (nm > 8). May it not be 


PSYCHOPHYSICS 145 


now that n is equal to 3 + a? This, in fact, 
would make our whole argument worthless. And 
yet we can save it. For the enormous variety of 
spatial relations in nature exists in another 
form on the psychical side also, in view of the 
fact that every peculiarity in the realm of that 
variety may be consciously possessed. 

Position in a triangle — I have “triangle.” 

Movement in a parabola— I have “parabola.” 

And thus we may add the number a on the psy- 
chical side also. But then our formula n + 3 
takes the form n+ a > 8-a. For an inequality 
remains an inequality, if we add the same integer 
to both sides. 


vi. Conclusions. 

The theory of psychomechanical parallelism 
is thus refuted. What is the consequence? Must 
we accept the theory of so-called psychophysical 
“interaction,” because psychophysical paral- 
lelism in its ordinary form is untrue? Oddly 
enough, no—at least not without great restric- 
tions. And this for the following reasons: 

Nature and mind are two spheres of empirical 
existence which are absolutely separated from 


146 THE CRISIS IN PSYCHOLOGY 


one another and, therefore, are absolutely un- 
able to act upon one another in a causal way. 
To assume that they were able would be sheer 
nonsense, at least on the ground of logic, or the 
theory of order. For the realm of metaphysics 
it may be different, but we have, so far, not as- 
sumed ourselves to be metaphysicians. Logic, 
then, must formulate what is usually called 
psychophysical interaction, as follows: 

I have my conscious objects in temporal se- 
quence. I establish the theoretical concept my 
soul, which means a quasi-independent object, 
the dynamic working of which results in certain 
states which themselves have, as their “parallels,” 
“my conscious havings.” This is a sort of paral- 
lelism between “‘my conscious havings” and cer- 
tain states of my (unconscious) soul. 

Now my body is among my empirical quasi- 
independent objects, as far as they belong to 
Nature. Like all organic bodies it is governed by 
a non-mechanical agent, entelechy. I am allowed 
here to speak of the entelechy of my body. 

Now there is, firstly, ‘‘interaction” between 
the “entelechy” and the matter of my body, and 
vice versa. This interaction occurs in the realm 


PSYCHOPHYSICS 147 


of nature, for “‘entelechy” is a factor in nature. 
But, secondly, the working of the “‘entelechy”’ of 
my body is “parallel” to the working of “my 
soul,” certain states of which were parallel to 
“my conscious havings.” 

Thus we have before us interaction in the 
purely natural sphere, i.e., between entelechy 
and the matter of my body; and three “paral- 
lels,” namely, the working of my “entelechy,” the 
working of my soul and, as far as certain states 
of the soul are concerned, “‘my conscious 
havings.”’ 

This sounds very artificial, but logic is a very 
artificial instrument, so to speak. Metaphysic- 
ally we shall find later on that my soul and my 
“entelechy” are One in the sphere of the Abso- 
lute. Then, and then only, may we speak of 
“psychophysical interaction,’ understanding, 
of course, the words “physical” and “‘psychical’’ 
not in that sense which they have in the field of 
appearance, but as denoting the metaphysical 
foundations of both nature and mind. But this 
can become quite clear only in a later chapter. 

For the sake of simplicity, then let us now 
speak of psychophysical interaction or of the 


148 THE CRISIS IN PSYCHOLOGY 


interaction between body and mind, though, as 
we know, this is not quite correct in the realm 
of logic. 

We know that the brain is the point where 
matter and mind come together; and they do it 
in a causal, not in a mere functional way, as we 
have proved. There is, then, a causal element in 
sensation as well as in the action of will. All we 
have said previously about these phenomena 
becomes more definite now, and at the same 
time, final, though still always in the sphere of a 
quasi-independence. For we are still logicians, 
and not yet metaphysicians. 

The brain is a preformed system of almost in- 
numerable possible connections. The mind uses 
this system, establishing real connections ac- 
cording to its unifying principles. The brain ++ 
soul == entelechy, like a great telephone sta- 
tion -++ its personnel. 

To explain how this may be be conceived is 
one of the objects of general vitalism. I have 
tried to analyse this problem in my Philosophy 
of the Organism.° Suffice it to say that we cannot 
see or touch “entelechy.” 


5 Ind German ed., 1921, pp. 416-94. 


PSYCHOPHYSICS 149 
C. Appendix: A Few Notes on Insanity 


A few words may be said here about the nature 
of so-called mental disease or insanity. 

Is it the “soul” that is ill, or the brain? While 
we cannot decide this question directly, we can 
discuss the two possibilities that are present, 
especially that one which, I think, we must advo- 
cate, namely, that there is an ‘“‘illness” of the 
brain, and not of the soul. 

On this basis, then, we might say: An insane 
person is “‘insane”’ on account of the wrong data 
which he gets in the course of his conscious life. 
These data owe their existence to a disturbance 
of the physiology of the brain. We have said on 
a former occasion (page 97) that, whatever 
psychophysical theory with respect to the brain 
one may accept, there is in any case a univocally 
determined relation between some ultimate ma- 
terial state of the brain and a conscious content 
of the form of an image. This is the psycho- 
physical postulate. On the basis of the fact ex- 
pressed in this postulate it is now possible that 
in the brain itself, without irritation of the sense 
organs, conditions may arise which are such that 
they determine in an univocal way specific con- 


150 THE CRISIS IN PSYCHOLOGY 


scious images. Hallucinations probably belong 
here, and so do the wrong data® which are the 
foundation of all insanity. These data are 
wrong, of course, only in case they are taken 
to be what they are not, namely, a something 
that indicates an empirical object. They are not 
“wrong” in themselves. But the insane person 
takes them for indexes of empirical reality. 

We must make a rather important distinction 
at this point. As long as a person who suffers 
from hallucinations or even so-called “forced 
ideas” knows that they are what we have just 
called them, he is not called “insane” in the 
deeper sense, though his psychical life is far 
from being “normal.” But he is really insane as 
soon as he unhesitatingly takes the data as in- 
dexes of real objects, that is to say, as soon 
as he is the captive or prisoner of the data, as 
it were. 

But does this fact not overthrow the whole 
theory of the importance of data for mental 


6 In my vitalism I have also introduced the concept of a 
wrong datum, namely in cases of superregeneration and 
the like. See Philosophie der Organischen, 2nd edit., 1921, 
pp. 441 and 484. 


PSYCHOPHYSICS 151 


disease? Does it not seem as if the faculty of 
judging were disturbed? And is not this faculty 
something in the soul that is quite independent 
of the brain? Thus, then, it would seem as if the 
soul might be sick in spite of all. And yet I do 
not believe that we are forced to accept this hy- 
pothesis. On the one hand the level of the faculty 
of judgment depends on education and exercise ; 
on the other hand there are also innate differ- 
ences with regard to this faculty. Both facts may 
explain, in many cases, what at first glance ap- 
pears as a disease of the soul; a good deal of 
“mental” illness would then be the consequence of 
a wrong interpretation of data on account of a 
weak faculty of judging, which is either innate 
or due to want of exercise. 

While this hypothesis of course does not fully 
explain all, it may, nevertheless, show the way 
to an explanation. 

There exists one great difficulty in the inter- 
pretation of mental diseases, as well as in the 
interpretation of the mental consequences of 
lesions of the brain, and this is the possibility 
that the conscious life of a person may perhaps 
be very different from his faculty to express it. 


152 THE CRISIS IN PSYCHOLOGY 


Kiven if we assume that we possess an innate 
idea of the yow as previously explained (page 
109), and that there is an innate faculty of cor- 
respondence between forms and rhythms in dif- 
ferent fields of becoming (page 110), we must in 
most cases infer the particulars of the conscious 
states of another person by mere analogy. This 
means that we must interpret his movements, in- 
cluding his speaking, in the widest sense of the 
word. For his movements are the only thing that 
is really given to us. The other person now may 
not, however, be able to express his conscious 
life and we, therefore, may call him ‘‘mad” while 
he is not. 

The same is true with regard to consequences 
of lesions of the brain, either by an accident or in 
the way of experiment. Aphasia and so-called 
mind-blindness have been much discussed in our 
day. The results have been very ambiguous: there 
may be aphasia without any discoverable lesion 
of the “language center,” there may be lesion of 
that center without aphasia, and there is often 
both aphasia and lesion with no correspondence 
between the two, at least as to degree. 


PSYCHOPHYSICS 153 


D. Final Remarks on the Mind-and-Body 
Problem 

This now brings us to some concluding general 
remarks with regard to the problem of mind and 
body. Let us enumerate what happens psycho- 
physically in a process which begins with a per- 
ception and ends in an action. There are, say, 
electromagnetic waves in a particular combina- 
tion; the retina is affected, so is the optic nerve 
and a specific part of the brain; this affects 
“entelechy” and its parallel, the soul; then I see 
an object. Feelings and thoughts now arise, gov- 
erned by “determining tendencies,” then a par- 
ticular “willing” comes in, marking a particular 
state of the soul and its parallel, “entelechy.” 
“Entelechy” affects motor brain parts, this af- 
fection is followed by the stimulation of a motor 
nerve and the whole process ends in the contrac- 
tion of certain muscles. 

What, now, about that part of the process 
which begins with “I see”? and ends with the ori- 
gin of willing? This part may be called the intra- 
psychical series. It is not possible, according to 
our theory, that the brain plays the fundamental 


154 THE CRISIS IN PSYCHOLOGY 


part in this process. But the brain may play a 
secondary role,—a role with regard to particu- 
lars. Here is the point where we are absolutely 
ignorant. Certainly the brain is not even the last 
basis of the mere fact of reproduction; for, as 
we have learned, reproduction is not re-produc- 
tion, but production, and we are not allowed to 
speak of real engrammata (page 124) in the 
brain. And it is still more impossible to assume . 
that the brain qua material brain is the last 
point in the sequence of psychical events, which, 
as we know, is directed towards order and whole- 
ness. And yet it might be possible that certain 
prerequisites with regard to the particulars of 
production are given in material cerebral states 
or conditions. In this case the brain would not 
merely be a system of connections, but more. 
But “more” in what sense? This we cannot even 
imagine hypothetically. The “wrong data” which 
underlie madness would in our opinion, of course, 
also be due to this unknown cerebral peculiarity. 

Bergson, as far as I understand him, does not 
assume that the brain is more than a system of 
connections, and calls it an organ of “attitude.” 
I recommend most intensively the thorough study 


PSYCHOPHYSICS 155 


of his Matiére et Memoire, one of the profound- 
est, if not the profoundest, book of modern psy- 
chology. 

In the field of the mind-body theory and the 
mind-brain theory in particular the new psy- 
chology differs most fundamentally from earlier 
theories, as you have seen, I trust, from our long 
discussion. And this difference does not only re- 
late to the breaking down of psychomechanical 
parallelism. Without any particular regard to 
the question, whether parallelism is true or not, 
the older psychology used to go back to the 
brain for an explanation of most features in the 
sequence of psychical phenomena if not of all. 
The importance of the brain for psychical life in 
general can hardly be underestimated, but as to 
the particular role that the brain plays in rela- 
tion to particular psychical phenomena, we know 
absolutely nothing with certainty. 

The soul, therefore, though not very “mod- 
ern” for a long time, has again come to occupy 
its rightful place, and there are even some psy- 
chologists, such as E. Becher, who have broken 
away almost completely from the engrammata 
theory as far as the brain is concerned, and who 


156 THE CRISIS IN PSYCHOLOGY 


do not hesitate to speak of engrammata of and 
in the soul, as Benecke had already done some 
hundred years before. 

We ourselves are partisans of this theory. But 
on the other hand we lay stress upon the point 
that the brain must in no case become super- 
fluous in any psychophysical theory, and that it 
might be somewhat more than merely a system 
of connections. Yet we do not know just what 
role it plays, and are able only to say that that 
role goes beyond the connecting function of the 
brain, and is certainly not of a primary but only 
of a secondary importance as far as the very 
essence of psychical phenomena is in question. 

We, of course, mean here by the word “brain” 
the material brain, the brain as far as it is 
physicochemically characterized at any moment 
of its existence. We do not mean the brain as 
governed by entelechy, not brain -++ entelechy. 
The brain, then, gua material system is not re- 
sponsible for the essence of the psychical, though 
it may be responsible for certain particulars in 
its sphere. The brain + entelechy, on the other 
hand, or the brain gua “physiological or vital 


PSYCHOPHYSICS 157 


system” is, of course, responsible for psychical 
essence, for entelechy is “parallel” to soul. 

So much or, rather, so little on the subject 
of mind and brain. We shall now leave psycho- 
physics, at least insofar as it has been our spe- 
cial subject, although we shall still have to say 
a good deal about the organization of mind or 
soul. But it seems to me that, before we do this, 
it would be wise to put the whole discussion on a 
higher plane. On a former occasion (page 105) 
we introduced the concept of the “other” Ego, 
in order to be a little more free in our discussion. 
The ‘‘other” Ego, we know, still remained in the 
realm of a mere quasi-existence, just as “my 
soul” did. For we did not leave the field of the 
theory of order, i1.., the realm of the I have 
something consciously. 

We shall now, however, take a more decisive 
step. We shall give up the “quasi,” the ‘‘as if” 
of the theory of order. We shall place the whole 
discussion upon a metaphysical plane. But do 
not assume that our metaphysics will be in a 
phantastic or mystical sphere. 


Itt 
THE METAPHYSICS OF MIND 


De foundation of metaphysics concerns 
the meaning of the term real, i.e., the term, 
being or existing in itself and not only “for 
myself” in the sense of a something that is con- 
sciously had. Esse, then, in the sphere of reality 
would be more than a mere percipt or concipt. 

We cannot prove, now, that reality “‘exists.” 
We can only say that according to our intuition 
the word “real”? has a meaning, just as much as 
the words “relation” and “so many.” We “‘see”’ 
that there will be more of order, if the theory of 
order will only give way and become more than 
a mere theory of ‘‘order.”’ For reasons of order, 
then, the theory of order gives way and becomes 
the theory of reality, or metaphysics. 

Metaphysics being established, the totality 
of what is generally called experience in the 
broadest sense of the word, i.e., the totality of 
what is consciously and immediately had or what 
is meant as a quasi-independent object, becomes 
the appearance of reality. 


METAPHYSICS OF MIND _ 159 


It is not, however, the task of this book to 
show in detail how metaphysics is possible and 
what methods it may apply.’ It has to do, first, 
with the world of empirical objects. These ob- 
jects are not real in the form of their appear- 
ance; but the various forms of appearance are 
signs or marks of so many various sides of 
reality. A good deal may thus be made out about 
the metaphysical significance of space, matter, 
time and causality. The problem of wholeness, 
personal and suprapersonal, enters the scene, 
and so does the famous problem of freedom. 
About this problem we shall have something to 
say at the end of the book. 

What, however, does interest us here in par- 
ticular is the metaphysical meaning of “‘the psy- 
chical,” i.e., of the J have consciously or I know, 
at least primarily. 

Space and everything spatial is “appearance” 
of a certain system of relations in the Absolute, 
unknowable to us ‘‘as such,”? and knowable only 
with regard to the manifoldness of its particu- 
lars. So it is, also, with matter, time, causality, 
and wholeness. 
1See my Wirklichkeitslehre, 2nd edit., 1922. 


160 THE CRISIS IN PSYCHOLOGY 


Is now knowing, or rather the I know, also 
‘appearance’? 

Knowing is the kind of relation that makes all 
particular knowledge, including all philosophy, 
possible. It is a unique kind of relation, for it 
does not connect objects with one another, but 
the subjective with objectivity as a whole. In 
this sense, as we know, the I have something con- 
sciously is for us at the bottom of all. 

It now seems to us that it would be meaning- 
less to say that a something “‘appears” to the 
Ego in the form of knowing. On the contrary, as 
soon as the concept of Reality or the Absolute 
has been established, knowing becomes part of 
it at once. Reject the concept of Reality, or ad- 
mit that the I have something consciously is 
part of it, and this is the only alternative left. 

In the form of the basic fact, I have some- 
thing, part of Reality knows itself as it is and the 
rest in the form of appearance. Thus ‘“‘know- 
ing” becomes a quale of the Absolute, the only 
quale of it which we know, as it is, immediately. 

Knowing is now also given to us indirectly, in 
the realm of appearance. There are other men, 
and animals, and vital entelechies, all of which 


METAPHYSICS OF MIND 161 


behave as if they knew, and it even seems as if 
I had an innate knowledge about “you-ness” or 
“otherness” with regard to subjectivity in 
general (page 111). 

Thus Reality contains many subject-points, 
so to speak, which know in various forms, one of 
which, the Ego-knowing, I know immediately. 
Of the other forms a certain part is fully under- 
standable to me, namely, the knowing of other 
men. Another form I understand only in part, 
for example, the knowing of a dog or a horse. 
The rest, namely, instinctive knowing and ente- 
lechical knowing, I can hardly understand at all. 

But one very important point must still be 
emphasized in this brief exposition: Subjects 
and objectivity are parts of One, namely of 
Reality. It is not a case of Reality “and some- 
thing else,” the subject. This would be nonsense. 
There is the One Reality, and it is such as to con- 
tain, as its most fundamental relation, knowing. 
Inside the sphere of Reality and knowing the 
particulars of known contents must be acquired 
by way of sensation, that is, in a causal way. 
This, at least, is true for my knowing, for “Ego- 
knowing.” But it seems that there are other 


162 THE CRISIS IN PSYCHOLOGY 


kinds of subjects, which do not need experience 
in order to know about particulars. It is these 
kinds of knowing subjects which we are unable 
to understand in full. 


bY 
THE ORGANIZATION OF MIND 


‘ X YE now come to the final chapters of this 

book. These chapters will, on the one © 
hand, be a sort of summary of everything studied 
before, though on a higher plane, and, on the 
other hand, will bring into the discussion many 
materials that have so far not been taken into 
consideration. 

Our psychology did not start from empirical 
facts, but from the primordial fact, J have some- 
thing consciously. The concepts of my body, of 
sense organs, nerves and brain, of psychophysics, 
of the soul, “my own” and “‘others,” were intro- 
duced step by step, since this was necessary in 
the interests of order. For psychology was to 
us a part of the general theory of order or logic, 
namely, with regard to the sequence of my con- 
‘scious somethings in time, and only ultimately 
was the metaphysical point of view introduced 
to replace the merely logical one. 


164 THE CRISIS IN PSYCHOLOGY 


1. CRITICAL REMARKS 
A. Brentano and Husserl 
In the first place I should like to compare my 
own conception of psychology with that of some 
modern authors, especially Brentano and Hus- 
serl, both of whom are men of great influence. 

Brentano has introduced into modern psy- 
chology a well known concept from medieval 
philosophy, but has almost forgotten, further 
on, the concept of the intentional act or, in 
brief, the “fact.” 

Brentano and his followers tell us that every 
psychical or conscious “thing” consists of four 
parts: the I, the act, the content and the object. 
They further tell us that the act may have dif- 
ferent forms, such as thinking, assuming, will- 
ing, etc. 

To this we make answer: 

Firstly, that in our opinion the distinction 
between content and object only holds when the 
object is of an empirical sort, belonging either 
to nature or soul in this quasi-independence, i.e., 
provided it is a mediate object which is meant 
by an immediate one, to apply our own termin- 
ology. But with regard to immediate objects, 


ORGANIZATION OF MIND 165 


contents and object are the same. I do not mean 
«6 \/Q” by something else, but I have the signifi- 
cances \/2, triangle, etc., quite immediately. 

Secondly, we do not believe that there are 
various forms of “act,” but that “having con- 
sciously” is the only form of act, and that all 
varieties of psychical things are varieties in 
the sphere of objects in the immediate sense, the 
objects having in one case one kind of accent, in 
another case another kind (page 28). This is 
in opposition to both Brentano and Husserl, the 
greatest of Brentano’s disciples. 

But now I must bring out something in oppo- 
sition to Husser! alone. Husser] does not assume, 
as does Brentano, that all psychical phenomena 
are “act” phenomena, but he admits psychical 


phenomena without “intention,” 


as, e.g., sensa- 
tion, i.e., he admits that these phenomena are 
merely erlebt. I reply that these phenomena are 
also, no doubt, consciously had, and that to this 
extent they are act-phenomena, because having 
consciously is the act. For consciously having is 
always a having of significances, however dim 
and little analysed it may be; and for this reason 


consciously having is always “intentionally” 


166 THE CRISIS IN PSYCHOLOGY 


having, even when it is not a meaning of empir- 
ical objects, but a mere having of contents (or 
immediate objects). This has been the very basis 
of our “modern psychology,” a basis which may 
also be expressed by the statement that to be 
conscious is the same as “to have consciously 
with intention,” or “to have significances.” 

There is, however, no special “region” of sig- 
nificance in the Platonic sense. Psychical or con- 
scious phenomena are phenomena that are them- 
selves invested with significance, and there ‘‘is” 
no significance except insofar as it “exists” as 
part of a psychical or conscious possession. 
Only in an artificial way may we abstract from 
conscious existence and study significances as 
such, as we do in mathematics; but we must 
never forget that we are in this case proceeding 
artificially. So much, by the way, against all 
neo-Platonism. 

We ourselves, to come back to the point, have 
never used in our system the words “act” or 
“intention,” because, as we have stated, in our 
opinion there is only one species of the genus 
act, namely, having, in the sense defined, and for 


ORGANIZATION OF MIND 167 


this reason the name of the species may serve as 
the name of the genus too. 

It must be emphasized that Husserl says, 
most markedly, that he does not intend to advo- 
cate any sort of conscious “activity” in using 
the word “act.” In this respect I fully agree with 
Husserl. There is, in fact, no conscious doing or 
making. But I think that just for this reason we 
ought to avoid the word “‘act” completely, as it 
too easily suggests “activity.” 

Brentano is not very keen in regard to the 
question whether there is conscious activity or 
not. He shares this deficiency with all philoso- 
phers and psychologists of former times, except 


Geulinck. 


B. On So-Called “Understanding” Psychology 
Another sort of polemics must follow the first. 
We have spoken of the problem whether there 
is an original knowledge about the “you,” or the 
“other ego.” We also spoke about our “under- 
standing” of other psychical life (page 161), 
saying that we may have this understanding 
either in full, or in part, or not at all—the first 


168 THE CRISIS IN PSYCHOLOGY 


being possible with regard to other human beings 
only. 

Now there have been some authors, and among 
them Dilthey and Jaspers as their leaders, who 
have spoken of two sorts of psychology, namely 
of an understanding and of an explaining psy- 
chology, and who have told us that these two 
varieties stand side by side and are of equal 
scientific value. 

I cannot agree with this statement. ‘‘Under- 
standing” psychology, is, in my opinion, not 
itself a scientific psychology, but only a prepar- 
ation for this. It collects materials for scientific 
psychology, under the assumption that we may 
speak of “other” psychical life at all, but it 
does nothing more. But the collecting of ma- 
terials and the “explaining” of them, 1.e., the 
bringing of them into a scheme of order, never 
stand side by side as equivalents. 

If I “understand” another Ego’s knowing, 
this only means to me that there is nothing 
which is new in principle, but merely another 
case of the same class. This may be a great sim- 
plification, no doubt. But simplification and 
explanation are not the same. 


ORGANIZATION OF MIND 169 


2. THE SOUL 
We now take up again the analysis of the or- 
ganization of the soul in full. In doing this we 
may now speak of many souls, and not alone of 
my own soul (page 114), and we may now also 
speak of knowing as a characteristic of reality 
(page 160). 

The soul of human beings is a non-spatial and _ 
non-extended being, and yet it is manifold in 
itself. Let us call it an intensive manifoldness. 
As we are able to analyse only extensive or spa- 
tial manifoldnesses in ultimate detail, we see at 
once that our knowledge of mental manifoldness 
must remain very fragmentary. 

The soul is in the main an wnconscious being ; 
only part of it is conscious in the form of the 
“TI have something.” But the word “unconscious” 
is intended only to express the meaning that the 
soul in full is not the Ego which I know, or, 
rather, which knows itself. It may be that the 
soul in full has the Ego-form also. But this 
would mean that the soul would be an alter Ego 
with regard to the J-Ego and would not be quite 
understandable to the latter, for it would have 
to be regarded as doing and not alone as having 


170 THE CRISIS IN PSYCHOLOGY 


(which is the characteristic of the I-Ego). The 
soul-Ego therefore would be an alter Ego in not 
quite the same sense in which so-called dissociated 
Egos, belonging to one soul and one body, are 
alter Egos with regard to one another. For the 
soul-Ego and the I-Ego would represent two 
species of ‘““Ego-ness.” 

The soul is dynamic. It “does” something. It 
works. We may say, somewhat loosely, that the 


> with reference 


words “thinking” and “willing,’ 
to the soul, now take on their usual meaning. 
This meaning does not stand in its right place, 
however, when applied to the Ego, for it is the 
most fundamental and the most certain result of 
all mental analysis that the Ego in the form of 
the I-Ego only has or possesses, but does not 
Sdn .73 

The willing, feeling and thinking soul, then, 
is a theoretical constructive hypothetical con- 
cept, meaning a dynamic something, just as the 
concepts “chemical affinity” or “‘potential 
energy” mean something dynamic. But we need 
that concept; for we wish order, which after- 
wards we interpret metaphysically. 

The dynamic soul is always working as a 


ORGANIZATION OF MIND 171 


whole. Its non-spatial organization is one whole; 
and another whole is formed by all materials 
acquired in life and preserved by the faculty of 
memory. The second wholeness depends on the 
first: the materials are inserted at specific “lo- 
calities,” as it were, of the (non-spatial) innate 
whole organization. 

All dynamic concepts applied by ordinary 
experimental psychology, such as association, 
“determining tendency,” etc., are only of a pre- 
liminary kind and must never overshadow the 
basic wholeness. 

Specific mental wholeness of a mental subject 
is the foundation of his so-called character. 

Those authors who apply the concept of 
“act” or “intention” in a fundamental sense 
(page 164), used to speak, at the same time, of 
various kinds of attitudes.’ There is the intel- 
lectual attitude, the moral, the esthetic, and the 
religious, each of them related to a certain 
specific “value.” 

Now we have repeatedly said that the I only 
performs one sort of act, namely, consciously 
having, and that, for this reason, it always has 


1 Hinstellung in German. 


172 THE CRISIS IN PSYCHOLOGY 


the same “‘attitude.”? But, nevertheless, there is 
a certain truth in the doctrine of a variety of 
attitudes, if only this concept be applied not to 
the Ego, but to the Soul. 

I have; and having is always the same. But 
my soul may_be said to be in various attitudes 
according to whether it works upon one kind of 
“somethings” or upon another kind. If it devotes 
itself to mere questions of order in general, it is 
in the intellectual attitude. It takes the moral 
attitude whenever it tries to find out the forms 
of order in the system of the actions of man, in- 
cluding “my own” actions. It is in the esthetic 
attitude, if it considers sensible singularities 
with regard to the essence expressed by them. It 
has a religious attitude, when devoted to the 
consideration of the dualism of reality and its 
discrepancy with the ideal of a monism of order. 
And it is an inexplicable fact that moral and 
religious attitudes of the soul are always ac- 
companied by a strong accent of feeling, con- 
sciously possessed by the Ego that corresponds 
to that soul. 

But all attitudes are “attitudes” of the soul 
and not of the Ego, which has only contents of 


ORGANIZATION OF MIND 173 


various forms. On the other hand, the variety 
of so-called attitudes on the part of the soul is 
by no means exhausted by the words intellectual, 
moral, esthetic, religious. We may here specify 
much more in detail and may speak of a mathe- 
matical attitude, an attitude towards so-called 
formal logic, towards problems of the order of 
nature, etc. 

Of course we may also classify attitudes under 
a different heading, speaking of pure intuition, 
of wishing, of willing, etc., with reference to one 
particular given content. But then also we must 
say that I have in every case in the same way, 
and only with regard to the doing soul may we 
say that different sides of its inner dynamics 
are at work in each case. 

The dynamics of the soul is threefold. There 
is firstly the inner dynamics, which is the founda- 
tion of our inner mental life, i.e., of the so-called 
stream of consciousness which, however, does not 
really exist as a “‘stream’”’ (page 46). Here we 
have to do with the “intrapsychical”’ series, 
mentioned above (page 153). ‘Determining 
tendencies” are working in a directing way, 
limiting forces and associative affinities being at 


174 THE CRISIS IN PSYCHOLOGY 


their disposal just as material forces are at the 
disposal of vital entelechy. But the whole-making 
ordering power of the soul in full is always at the 
bottom of all. The part played by the brain 
here is unknown, but does certainly not affect 
the essentials (page 156). 

During the soul’s working that part of the 
soul which we call the I-Ego becomes consciously 
aware of certain results of that working. Feel- 
ings, thoughts, images of phantasy, of memory, 
contents of thoughts stand before the J, one 
after the other. The temporal sequence of these 
various forms of ‘“‘ideas” is, of course, that 
which is immediately given, and the whole dy- 
namics of the soul is, as it were, invented for its 
explanation. 

Secondly, there is the physicopsychical or 
centripetal dynamics of the soul. The body is 
affected by a physical stimulus; this then affects 
the parallel duplicity, entelechy-soul, and this 
affection becomes conscious to the ‘‘I-Ego” in 
the form of a perception. Perceptions are des- 
tined to give notice to the J either of states of 
the body related to it, or of states and condi- 
tions of the medium, both, however, in the form 


ORGANIZATION OF MIND 175 


of appearance, which means that there is some- 
thing in reality. 
Thirdly, there is the psychicophysical or cen- 


trifugal dynamics realized in action. 


3. THE FACTORS CONCERNED IN THE ACQUISITION 
OF KNOWLEDGE 

Let us, firstly, speak further of perception and 

its elements, sensations, and of certain problems 

connected with it. 

We already know that what we “perceive” are 
not states of our brain, but, strange to say and 
yet very generally recognized, things outside, or 
conditions of our body. 

The community of all perceptions may be 
called the “material” of our empirical knowl- 
edge, of our view of the world. 

We now possess this knowledge invested with 
certain forms, or, rather, inserted into certain 
pre-established forms: space, time and the so- 
called categories, such as substance and causal- 
ity and individuality. Here the problem of a so- 
called “‘theory of knowledge” arises in the field 
of psychology, and the most fundamental ques- 
tion within this problem is whether: the content 


176 THE CRISIS IN PSYCHOLOGY 


of our knowledge is a picture of reality or merely 
a symbolic expression of it. 

In the pure theory of order a theory of knowl- 
edge has no place, because the concept of “‘knowl- 
edge” in the narrow sense of the term has no 
place in it, or only perhaps in the form of 
“‘quasi-knowledge.” For “knowledge” in the nar- 
row sense of the word means the possession of a 
something which exists in itself, or which is alien 
to the one who possesses it, while the pure the- 
ory of order, takes knowing merely in the gen- 
eral sense of I have consciously, and does not 
speak of a something which exists in itself and 
is only touched, as it were, by knowing. 

Only if there is the ‘I’? on the one side of 


> which has a nature or 


reality and the “else,’ 
essence in itself, on the other side, can there be 
a real meaning to the question, whether I con- 


» “as itis” or in the form of mere 


ceive the ‘‘else 
symbols. 
Psychology, it is true, may already, in the 
sphere of a mere theory of order, speak of what 
we have called a quasi-knowledge insofar as it 
considers things and other Egos as something 


which exists as if they were independent. But this 


ORGANIZATION OF MIND MegiTh 


point of view is very artificial and we prefer to 
discuss in this book’ the outlines of a theory of 
knowledge in its psychological form on meta- 
physical grounds exclusively. 

A real theory of knowledge, then, requires 
the concept of absolute being, of metaphysical 
being, as its foundation. On this basis alone the 
question whether our knowledge is a picture or 
merely a symbol has a real meaning. 

Kant has formed a very interesting concep- 
tion of real knowledge: He agrees that the “else” 
exists, but says that we cannot know it as it is in 
itself. The “else” affects the unconscious mind; 
this mind then invests the “else” or its effects 
with certain forms that are virtually innate, 
namely, quality, time, space, the categories, and 
then at the end, presents the results in these 
forms to the mind’s conscious part, the Ego. 

This conception may be true. However, we 
can never know whether it is or not, for we are 
unable to ‘‘compare” an in itself with a for 
myself and, therefore, it may be that the forms 
which stand before our conscious side and are 


2 A purely psychological theory of knowledge in the sphere 
of logics is to be found in my Ordnungslehre, 2nd edit., 
1923, pp. 315 ff. 


178 THE CRISIS IN PSYCHOLOGY 


regarded as fabrications of the mind by Kant 
are in fact constituents of the objective side of 
reality ‘‘in itself.’ In any case this may be true 
with regard to the categories. Then there would 
be a sort of immediate basic harmony among the 
“giving” forms on the objective side of reality 
and the “receiving” forms on the subjective side. 

But even on the foundation of the theory of 
Kant our view of. the world is not a mere fiction; 
in any case it is a symbolic expression of reality, 
though it may not be a true picture of it. For 
the degree of manifoldness of reality must cor- 
respond to the degree of manifoldness of its sub- 
jective expression. Otherwise a postulate of logic 
would be violated. 

We possess certain original forms of order, 
which permit us to establish a system of doc- 
trines independent of empirical experience or at 
least of the amount of it. Thus we know at once 
and in an absolutely definite way, for example, 
that the straight line is the shortest line between 
two points, that only one parallel is possible to 
a given line through a given point outside it. 
These statements are called a priori. They are 
like instinctive knowledge with regard to the 


ORGANIZATION OF MIND se, 


spatial relations of empirical things and 
motions. 

The same is true, though in a somewhat dif- 
ferent way, with regard to other principles, such 
as the principle of causality. You may say that 
this principle is not quite irreducible, that it 
may be dissolved into elements. Thus we may say 
that it is nothing but the concept of reason and 
consequence applied to becoming. And yet the 
non-philosophical individual applies the princi- 
ple of causality in an instinctive way without 
knowing of its complexity. He knows a priori 
that every event must have a cause, of whatever 
sort. Even the savage knows this and acts 
accordingly. 

The essential point is, however, that what we 
call causality in the realm of appearance cor- 
responds to a certain system of relations in the 
Absolute, the essence in itself of which we cannot 
know. And so does space with all its relations. 
We thus know a priori or, in psychological 
terms, “instinctively” much that is at least con- 
nected with the relations of Reality, even if we 
do not know the absolute quality of the latter. 

A very important question, now, is whether 


180 THE CRISIS IN PSYCHOLOGY 


we have other such instinctive knowledge, besides 
that which relates to space, time and the most 
general categories. I believe that we have. 
Thus we have spoken of an original you- 
certainty on a former occasion (page 108). Also 
we have an innate knowledge of the boundaries 
of our body, for each of our sensations of being 
touched refers to quite a specific locality of the 
body as a whole. Also in so-called moral feeling 
we have an instinctive general knowledge of our 
belonging to a suprapersonal spiritual commun- 


993 


ity. Finally what is called “impulse’’’ belongs 
here, and has been studied in a profound way by 
McDougall with special reference to man. 

We thus seem to possess many innate instinc- 
tive “knowledges,” at the bottom of all of which 
there is the original knowing of “‘somethings,” of 
“objectivity,” which is one of the essential con- 
stituents of knowing itself, and is applied by the 
lay person in quite an immediate unreflecting 
way. Even the philosopher, however, though he 
is forced to destroy this belief in objectivity in 
its primitive form, is forced to reconstruct it in 
a critical fashion. For, I believe, there is in fact 


3 Trieb in German, 


ORGANIZATION OF MIND 181 


not a single philosopher who does not give to the 
concept of true Reality some place in his system, 
even though it be a remote one. 

Thus we have, then, an a priori or, in psy- 
chological terms, an innate instinctive knowledge 
about objectivity or “otherness” in general, 
about other minds, about our body, about a 
suprapersonal community to which we belong, 
and about some general spatial and categorical 
relations of the objective part of reality in the 
form of appearance. 

All this constitutes a community of schemata 
which are to be filled with special contents by so- 
called empirical experience in the way of sensa- 
tions. Sensation does not create consciousness, 
but occurs innate in the realm of given con- 
sciousness with all its essentials, the most funda- 
mental of which is the essential relation knowing, 
or, I have something, or subject-object. 

Why do not we possess more? Why do we 
need sensation and perception? Why are we not 
monads which, in the sense of Leibniz, represent 
a complete “‘universe of the universe” in an ori- 
ginal and primordial way? 

It is not at all nonsensical to raise this ques- 


182 THE CRISIS IN PSYCHOLOGY 


tion. For we know that there are other “subject- 
points” which in fact possess more of innate 
knowledge than we possess, and, on the other 
hand, it is almost certain nowadays that man 
also may occasionally, in the form of clairvoy- 
ance, possess more of it than he does “as a rule,” 
the “rule” therefore being not an inevitable law, 
but only an expression of the average. 

The aprioristic schematic knowledge which 
we possess about objectivity in general, about 
other minds, our body, spatial and causal gen- 
eral relations, etc., is, of course, not independent 
of experience qua actual conscious knowledge, 
but is a priori present only in a virtual way with 
regard to consciousness. It becomes actual 
knowledge whenever any particular experience 
occurs, and this is in a way which can best be 
described by the words: “I might have known 
this before.” 

The totality of the aprioristic instinctive vir- 
tual schemata forms the main part of what we 
have called the organic action of the unconscious 
soul. We may suppose hypothetically that all 
“‘determining tendencies” and latent directing 
potencies (page 62) originating during the men- 


ORGANIZATION OF MIND 183 


tal life of an Ego, have their ultimate founda- 
tion here. In other words: The original organized 
constitution of the unconscious mind determines 
which groups of tasks and wishes will be con- 
sciously had by an Ego, all details being deter- 
mined by experience. 

A full investigation of all that is “instinc- 
tive” in some way in man, is very much needed | 
and will not be found to be a very difficult task 
after McDougall’s work.* Sexual, feeding, 
“power” instincts and many others belong here. 

The mental diversities among men are ex- 
pressed, as everybody knows, by the diversities 
of their tasks and wishes. This diversity may in 
part be due to the contingencies of actual experi- 
ence, one person having certain experiences in 
one field, another person, other experiences in 
another field. But this is not all. There are also 
original and primordial mental diversities among 
human individuals. What is the reason? Why is 
not mind always exactly the same, at least as far 
as its original, dynamic organization is con- 
cerned? Or may we say that, in fact, mind is 
always the same qua mind or soul, and that all 


4 Social Psychology. 


184 THE CRISIS IN PSYCHOLOGY 


innate diversities in character and talent depend 
exclusively on the contingencies of the material 
organization of the body? If this were the case 
we should come back again to the question as to 
what role the brain qua material brain plays in 
psychology (page 156). But again an answer is 
impossible. 


4. VARIOUS FORMS OF KNOWING 
Let me say still a few more words about the 
ordinary forms of knowing which differ from 
the form that is given to man.° 


5 We intentionally do not speak, in this book, of the prob- 
lem of an evolution of the mind, either ontogenetic or 
phylogenetic. For there are many good books on the 
“psychology of the child,” and, on the other hand, the 
phylogenetic question is still very unsettled. See Kriiger, 
Entwicklungspsychologie. See also page 76, where I have 
stated that we never know whether we have to do with a 
real embryonic evolution of the mind or merely with the 
brain’s embryology. The acquisition of known contents, 
of course, is not evolution. Whether the structure of mind 
evolves itself embryologically—that is the question. 
The question of a suprapersonal mind will also not be 
discussed in this book. Let me only say that, though there 
may be one suprapersonal mind embracing all men or 
even all organisms, there is certainly not a specific supra- 
mind that embraces a particular nation or people. What 


ORGANIZATION OF MIND 185 


There is no reason to assume that primitive 
man has an organization of mind which is essen- 
tially different from ours. He merely does not 
know what criticism and what analysis are, that 
is all. Even the very thorough book of Levy- 
Brihl on the Thinking of Primitive Tribes has 
not convinced me that the opposite is true. 
Primitive man has all the categories, in particu- 
lar causality, and differs from ourselves insofar 
as he fills them with content in a very uncritical 
way. He certainly does not know Mills’ laws of 
induction. But this does not mean that the struc- 
ture of his mind is essentially different from 
ours. We may even find the “primordial” type 
of mind among very uneducated people of our 
own country, in particular with regard to relig- 
ious ideas. The so-called primordial mind is 
therefore related to the critical mind, as mythol- 
ogy is to metaphysics. There is the same funda- 
mental structure in both, the same “scheme of 


has been called Volksseele by certain German authors 
may all be reduced to conscious or unconscious suggestion 
or imitation. Whoever accepts a Volksseele as a particular 
entity must also accept such an entity for a university or 
even a club! 


186 THE CRISIS IN PSYCHOLOGY 


order” in our terminology, or the same form, 
and it is only the filling out of this form with 
empirical contents that constitutes the difference. 

The mind of animals can be studied only by 
the behavioristic method, and this has been very 
ably done, especially in America by Jennings, 
Thorndike, Yerkes, Watson and others. The 
faculty of memory extends down to the infu- 
soria. Association and “determining tendencies” 
are certainly at work in dogs, cats, elephants 
and even the octopus and the starfish. People 
used to say that animals, though endowed with 
“intelligence,” lacked the faculty of “abstrac- 
tion.” I no not believe that this argument meets 
the main point; besides, it is rather vague. The 
main point of difference between human and 
animal intelligence is, it seems to me, firstly, that 
animals cannot dissolve and recombine their 
“historical basis” (page 180) to such an extent 
as can man. “‘A sausage and a stick are, as it 
were, letters of the dog’s alphabet,” I have said 
elsewhere. Secondly, that animals never possess 
explicitly the categories or signs of order, though 
they act according to them implicitly ; they know 


ORGANIZATION OF MIND 187 


what a thing is, but they do not consciously have 
the meaning of “thing.” 

Kverything becomes different as soon as we 
turn to instinctive performances, as present for 
example, in birds, ants, and bees. Their instincts 
are much richer than ours, which always remain 
quite general and indefinite. 

The difference between an instinctive perform- 
ance and an action is this: The instinctive per- 
formance is perfect in its typical specificity of 
combination the very first time it occurs, while 
action may and must be improved as experience 
proceeds. This implies that there must be quite 
a particular sort of knowing at the bottom of 
instinct. The bird must have a sort of image 
of his nest, the. bee of its hive. The older natural- 
ists have well said that animals with instincts 
“dream” in advance of what they are to per- 
form. Instinctive faculty is like the faculty of 
an artist, say, a painter; it is not an excep- 
tional, but a generic faculty. Such knowing we 
do: not understand at all. And still less do we 
understand the “knowing” which must underlie 
in some way the working of vital entelechy in 


188 THE CRISIS IN PSYCHOLOGY 


embryology or in morphogenetic restitution. 
Like an instinct, entelechy works without sub- 
sequent improvement, perfectly from the very 
beginning. To instinct therefore, not to intelli- 
gence, it must be compared. But both are forms 
of knowing. — 


5, THE DYNAMICS OF WILL 
We have stated that the dynamics of the soul is 
threefold (page 173), thatit consists of an inner, 
a centripetal dynamics and a centrifugal part. 
The inner dynamics we have discussed at length 
in previous chapters; some important topics 
which relate to centripetal dynamics were ana- 
lysed in the chapter on psychophysics and in 
the paragraph just above. For everything that 
has to do with the acquisition of knowledge and 
with various forms of innate knowledge, belongs 
here. We now have to add a few words on centri- 
fugal dynamics, completing what has already 
been said about will.° For with the consciously 


6 Only outer or “centrifugal” will (page 175), of course, 
is the subject of discussion here, the dynamics of inner 
or “centripetal” will belonging to the inner dynamics of 
mental life exclusively. 


ORGANIZATION OF MIND 189 


having of a will content, specific centrifugal 
dynamics sets in. 

Let us assume, in the first place, that, for 
example, I have the will to write a letter, but 
that I do not have the will to contract certain 
muscles of my fingers. Nay, I do not even have 
the will to take my pen, though my hand takes 
it. This tells us that the conscious side of all 
willing is extremely limited; it relates to some 
final state exclusively, at least in most cases, all 
intermediate states necessary for the accom- 
plishment of the former being reached “auto- 
matically.” And this means that conscious will- 
ing is an index of a certain state of the mind 
which, on its part, makes effective a certain 
dynamics that remains almost entirely in the 
unconscious sphere. J will a certain end, and my 
soul knows what is to be done in order to 
reach it. 

My conscious willing may originate in imme- 
diate correspondence to a perception, as in the 
case of my seeing a friend at some distance and 
having the will to meet him. But it also may 
originate in what is generally called the “spon- 


190 THE CRISIS IN PSYCHOLOGY 


taneous” way, that is to say, in the course of the 
dynamics of my inner mental life. 

All this will prove to be of importance with 
regard to certain psychological phenomena 
which will be discussed very soon. 

In certain cases there exists a certain conflict 
as to what is to be “willed,” the so-called conflict 
of motives. And it is here that the competition 
of various feelings which has been mentioned 
above’ sets in, the one feeling possessing the 
stronger accent of pleasure, the other the 
stronger accent of finality (“depth” or “weight” 
according to Kriiger). One of the two feelings 
will be victorious and will thus determine the 
will proper, and therefore action. We shall come 
back to this problem again, when discussing 
freedom. 


6. ON CERTAIN MODIFICATIONS OF MENTAL LIFE 
A. Terminology 
We return to the general analysis of the organi- 
zation of the human mind or soul, a topic which 
is by no means finished. 
Let us, in the first place, introduce a few 


7 p.35. 


ORGANIZATION OF MIND 191 


technical terms which will prove to be of great 
importance for all that is to follow, and make 
the discussion much more simple and easy. 

By the term simple memory, or memory with- 
out a temporal accent, I shall understand the 
faculty of remembering any part of past experi- 
ence merely with regard to its quality, but with- 
out reference to the particular connection in 
which it has stood in the totality of experience, 
and, therefore, without a specific time accent. 

By the term specified memory, or memory with 
a temporal accent, I shall mean the faculty of 
remembering any part of the past experience 
with particular reference to its “date,” 1.e., the 
particular temporal and other relations in which 
it has stood. 

The faculty of speaking a foreign language, 
then, belongs to the phenomena of simple mem- 
ory, while to remember what I said a week ago 
at*noon belongs to specified memory. 


B. The Meaning of the Word “Unconscious” 
Still another introductory remark will prove to 
be of importance. 

By the word “unconscious” we have already 


192 THE CRISIS IN PSYCHOLOGY 


denoted a something which, though belonging to 
the psychical sphere and not being physical, is 
yet not a something which “I have” or “have 
had.’ We now simply add that “unconscious” is 
to mean the same both as not being conscious 
and as not having been conscious. This seems 
self-evident and quite superfluous. But, strange 
to say, it is not. For there are certain authors 
who speak of “unconscious ideas,” i.e., of “un- 
conscious conscious contents,” terms that are 
sheer nonsense, and there are others who speak 


> which is also sheer non- 


of ‘unnoticed ideas,’ 
sense, though perhaps not so apparent, for this 
also means and can only mean an idea which is 
not and has not been a conscious idea. Every- 
thing that is “‘not noticed,” therefore, is not or 
has not been conscious, and is, therefore, nothing 
in the realm of conscious contents. 

In this connection we at once raise another 
question in order to settle it for all time. 

Can I “remember” something which I have 
never consciously possessed, not even in the 
dimmest way, though I might have possessed it 
in so far as the stimulus in question has affected, 
for example, my ear or my eye? Or is this im- 


ORGANIZATION OF MIND 193 


possible, and must every case in which this phe- 
nomenon seems to have occurred be related to a 
real past conscious possession which has been 
merely forgotten very quickly and definitely? 
Or, to state the problem in more concrete terms: 
I am walking along the street in order to go into 
a certain shop, but I am talking with a friend, 
and am inattentive to the matter of the shop. 
Suddenly I notice that I have already passed 
my objective. What has happened? Did I really 
not “see” the name in question and yet “‘remem- 
ber” to have seen it? Or did I see but at once 
forget? The truth is, unfortunately, that we do 
not know. But in any case if I have not seen, then 
I have not “‘seen,”’ and to speak of an “‘uncon- 


> remains a contradictio in 


scious having seen’ 
adjecto. 

Now that our preparatory work has been 
done, we may proceed with our discussion as to 


the mind’s organization. 


C. Classification and Description 
The mind or soul may, firstly, pass through con- 
secutive or, rather, alternative states which are 
very different in structure with regard to the 


194 THE CRISIS IN PSYCHOLOGY 


conscious part, and there may be, secondly, cer- 
tain states of the mind which are separated into 
two or more strata, as it were, each endowed 
with an Ego, the strata being in causal inter- 
action with one another. Thirdly, there is the 
phenomenon of two alternating Egos of the same 
general structure, but with different contents ; 
and, finally, there is the splitting off of certain 
fragments of the mind that are not endowed 
with an Ego, but that affect the one Ego which 
exists as a whole. 

1. Dreams. 

The first of these implies the phenomenon of 
dream in its alternation with waking, on the one 
hand, and the phenomenon of the hypnotic state, 
in its alternation with the normal state, on the 
other hand. 'The second phenomenon is gener- 
ally described by the words consciousness and 
subconsciousness. 'The third is called dissocia- 
tion of personality; it is mostly combined with 
the phenomenon of subconsciousness. The fourth 
is the phenomenon of the co-called complexes of 
Freud. 

All these phenomena may be combined in some 
way. They do not interest us with regard to their 


ORGANIZATION OF MIND 195 


specific peculiarities,. but only with regard to 
what they reveal as to the essence of the soul. 

Let us, then, first consider the chief charac- 
teristics of dreams in relation to our discoveries 
in the field of the normal psychology of waking 
conscious life. There is no doubt that dreams are 
sequences of somethings which are consciously 
had. And the Ego of ‘‘my” dreams is the same 
as the Ego of my waking, for I may remember 
“my” dreams, and while dreaming I remember 
a good deal of my experiences in the waking 
state. Thus it seems as if with regard to the 
Ego-relation and memory there were only slight 
differences between dreaming and waking; and 
yet these are rather important differences, as is 
shown, if we go into details. 

With regard to remembering, there seem, 
however, to be more important differences. Thus 
in the waking stage I remember, or at least may 
remember, the contents of my dreams in the form 
of specified memory, while in dreams only simple 
memory, i.e., memory without a temporal accent, 
is at work. This means that, while dreaming, I 
recognize what a house or a dog is, but without 
any reference to the real temporal and causal re- 


196 THE CRISIS IN PSYCHOLOGY 


lations of the past. Simple memory is thus very 
strong in dreams; for very often things long for- 
gotten appear in them, though without a speci- 
fied accent of time. 

As to Ego-ness it is true that the waking and 
the dreaming Ego are the same qua Egos, and 
yet one very strange characteristic of the dream 
is closely related to the concept of Ego-ness: 
The somethings I have in my dreams are, of 
course, all my somethings. But I possess some 
of them, very often at least, as if another per- 
son were telling me about them; for instance, it 
often happens that I ‘‘ask’”’ somebody a question 
while dreaming, and get an ‘“‘answer” from him. 
Let us call this strange form of knowing: 
Knowing in the form of alien knowing, or, more 
explicitly, knowing in the form of knowing about 
another subject’s knowledge. For the situation 
is this: I know in the form, ‘“‘as if I knew that 
another person knows”! This strange form of 
knowing will prove to be of general importance. 

The general structure of dreams in contrast 
to that of waking psychical life is often de- 
scribed by saying that all directing agents are 
absent in them, and that pure association oc- 


ORGANIZATION OF MIND 197 


cupies the field exclusively. This is most decid- 
edly wrong. For dreams have significance and 
meaning and are by no means chaotic, nay, they 
are sometimes very dramatic. 

But there are other features in the structure 
of dreams which may serve to distinguish them 
from waking life. 

Firstly, there is an enormous prevalence of | 
the sensible® in dreams: one picture follows an- 
other. This is not the same thing as saying that 
no abstract elements exist in dreams. Such ele- 
ments exist, but they are dim and quite over- 
shadowed by the sensible. 

Secondly, and this is the most important 
characteristic, there prevails in dreams what 
might briefly be called lack of judgment. This 
feature is related to the lack of specified memory 
in dreams, but it means more than this. The ac- 


> are abso- 


cents of finality, of “being in order,’ 
lutely lacking. We have forgotten all our knowl- 
edge about laws of nature—and are not at all 
astonished about it. 

What, then, is the meaning of dreams? What 
do they express? 


8 Anschaulich, in German. 


198 THE CRISIS IN PSYCHOLOGY 


Freud, it seems to me, was right in saying that 
in very many cases at least dreams are the ful- 
filment of wishes which cannot be fulfilled while 
awake. These wishes may belong to the sexual 
sphere, but not necessarily. Freud and his fol- 
lowers have established a complete table of sym- 
bols with regard to this topic, unfortunately 
almost exclusively for the sexual desires. Freud 
has also introduced the important concept of 
censor, which means that the obstacles which 
prevent a wish-fulfilment while awake cause the 
dream to be symbolic. For all details the reader 
should go back to the very important works of 
Freud himself. 

Our brief explanation of dreams must suffice 
here. Other features of dreams are very rare and 
rather uncertain. The continuation of the same 
dream on subsequent nights may be mentioned, 
and it may be added that if this feature were a 
normal one, we should probably speak of two 
kinds of nature, the “‘night-nature”’ and the 


> and should be quite accustomed 


“‘day-nature,’ 
to “belong” alternately to each of them. 
The theory of dreams, then, teaches us that 


the I have consciously exists in two modifica- 


ORGANIZATION OF MIND 199 


tions, alternating according to whether I “sleep” 
or “am awake.” The latter alone shows a con- 
tinuation of its contents and leads to that 
concept of empirical reality of which my psy- 
chophysical person is a specific member. 


u. Hypnosis. 

The phenomena of hypnotism, subconscious- 
ness, dissociation and complexes must now be 
studied together. But we shall lay stress only 
upon those characteristics that are important 
for our understanding of the ultimate structure 
of mind. We shall not study these phenomena in 
detail with regard to their descriptive and clas- 
sificatory side, as this part of the matter is quite 
generally known. A few words only will be de- 
voted to pure description and classification in 
order to eliminate misunderstanding. 

The hypnotic state is not a kind of sleep, for 
there is sensation, perception and willing during 
it, though these are limited to a particular field 
of empirical reality determined in most cases 
by the hypnotist and by the words spoken by 
him. The hypnotic state is induced either by 
suggestion or by auto-suggestion, the first prob- 


200 THE CRISIS IN PSYCHOLOGY 


ably always being reducible to the second and 
only acting as an important stimulus. What 
might be called the emptiness of consciousness 
is the prerequisite of the hypnotic state; even 
this emptiness may originate either by a “‘sug- 
gestion” of somebody else, which is accepted, as 
it were, and transformed into autosuggestion, or 
by autosuggestion directly, i.e., by a release of 
all willing, either directly or by means of looking 
at a fixed point or into a crystal or in some 
other way. 

The hypnotic state being established, its most 
general fundamental characteristics are hyper- 
esthesia, the lack of fatigue with regard to mus- 
cular contraction, and great strength of sample 
memory. All other characteristics of hypnosis 
depends on particular suggestions or autosug- 
gestions, after original general suggestion or 
autosuggestion has already established that 
state. 

The most important suggestions and auto- 
suggestions of a particular kind may result in 
purely psychical or in psychophysical phe- 
nomena. 

Let me give a short classification : 


ORGANIZATION OF MIND 201 


(1) Physical Phenomena 

(1) Positive hallucinations and illusions: A 
flower is seen where there is none (hallucination), 
a spot on the window is taken for a butterfly, 
water for wine, potatoes for oysters (illusion). 

Gi) Negative hallucination: A certain person 
of a company is neither seen nor heard, though 
he is present. 

(au) Imitation, in a dramatic way, of other 
persons (Napoleon) or younger states of one’s 
own personality (a child), or even an animal. 

(av) “Knowing in the form of knowing about 
alienknowing,” (page 196). The hypnotized per- 
son, for instance, often knows about the experi- 
ences of his normal state as if this normal state 
were another personality. 

(v) Suggestive or autosuggestive influence 
upon all sorts of “fixed ideas,’ phobias, bad 
habits, etc. 

(vi) Posthypnotic suggestion, i.e., the fact 
that a suggestion during hypnosis, consisting of 
a command to perform a certain action after 
being awakened, is carried out exactly at a fixed 
time, say at 10:30 a.m. next day, provided that 


202 THE CRISIS IN PSYCHOLOGY 


the action suggested is not too much against the 
normal ‘‘character” of the person in question. 


(2) Psychophysical Phenomena 

Suggestive influence upon the healing of 
wounds, on inflammation, digestion, menstrua- 
tion, etc. Even the healing process in tubercu- 
losis is said to be influenced by suggestion or 
immediate autosuggestion; and an ordinary 
“cold” one has caught may be abolished. 

As a rule the person in hypnosis, the H-person, 
as we may call him, knows everything about the 
same person in his normal state, the N-person, 
either normally or in the form mentioned under 
(1, iv) but not vice versa, if this is not particu- 
larly suggested. An H-person in a subsequent 
state of hypnosis knows about his experiences 
in all former hypnotic states. 

The H-state therefore is richer in contents 
than the N-state. But the N-state is richer in 
judgment, i.e., richer with regard to the distinc- 
tion between what is “true” or not true. We may 
also say that the H-state is one of passivity, the 
N-state one of mental activity. 


ORGANIZATION OF MIND 203 
il. Dissociation. 

By dissociation of the personality we mean 
the fact, fortunately rather rare, that two or 
even more Egos belonging to one soul (and one 
body) alternate with one another as far as their 
“waking”? state is concerned. Dissociation is 
mostly the effect of a so-called “shock.” Let a 
mentally normal person be called an A-person. 
Then, in a case of dissociation, there is sud- 
denly a B-person, of a very different “charac- 
ter,” living his own life. B in most cases remem- 
bers what A has experienced, either in an 
ordinary way or in the form “as if A were some- 
body else.” But B may also be absolutely ex- 
cluded from A’s experience. A, the original state, 
never knows anything of B, when, later on, he 
has taken charge again. Let us not forget, how- 
ever, that even if A and B are absolutely igno- 
rant of one another, yet their “simple memory,” 
with regard to language, to social institutions, 
etc., is almost always the same.° 


9 There are a few cases in which the B-state knows abso- 
lutely nothing of A’s former life, i.e., does not even possess 
A’s “simple memory.” B, then, has to learn everything 
from the beginning, including some language. But such a 
“psychological baby” learns very quickly. 


204 THE CRISIS IN PSYCHOLOGY 


There are many variations of the phenomenon 
of dissociation, but what we have said may 
suffice, and we have only still to add that the 
B-person—or a C-person in other cases—may 
occasionally influence the action of the A-person, 
to the great astonishment of this person himself. 

Freud’s ‘‘complexes” act in a similar way. 
They are, however, not crowned by an Ego, but 
are fragments of conscious contents, as it were. 
They influence the actions of a normal waking 
personality, just as one of the latent person- 
alities in real dissociation may do. So much 
may be said about these strange phenomena in a 
merely descriptive and classificatory way. For 
further details the reader should study the 
works of Janet, Bizet, Freud, Morton Prince, 
Baudouin, etc. 

You will have noticed that almost the same 
essentials, such as the influence of one Ego upon 
another, i.e., occur in several of the phenomena 
in question, and we shall now try to analyse 
these essentials in full. In doing so we shall take 
our material, as it comes, from hypnosis, from 
dissociation, from the action of complexes, and 
perhaps also from dreams; and some other phe- 





ORGANIZATION OF MIND 205 


nomena, not yet mentioned, such as automatism, 
will likewise enter into our discussions. 


D. The Causation of Hypnosis and its Essence 
The first thing to be discussed is the hypnotic 
state and its causation as such. 

The inauguration of the hypnotic state itself 
is always, strange to say, marked by an act of 
will, or rather by a sequence of two such acts. 
The first act consists in willing mental passivity 
or emptiness, the second in willing attention with 
regard to a very limited field. This field varies 
in kind, according to whether suggestion or auto- 
suggestion is in question. In the first case atten- 
tion is directed towards the hypnotist, in the 
second to a particular idea originating in the 
mind itself. This difference remains, even if sug- 
gestion is completely reducible to autosugges- 
tion. We are told, by Coué and Baudouin in 
particular, that there must be no strength of 
willing in autosuggestion; that this would have 
just the reverse effect with regard to the conse- 
quences of autosuggestion which are expected. 
But, in any case, an act of willing stands at the 
beginning ; for “to be mentally empty” and then 


206 THE CRISIS IN PSYCHOLOGY 


“to be attentive” must be willed, though it may 
be true that a strong and decided willing, when 
directed towards the content of an autosugges- 
tion as such, disturbs the autosuggestive effect. 

We know that in willing J do not “do” any- 
thing. The doing is in my mind (page 35). The 
will directed towards ‘‘becoming hypnotic,” 
then, is an index of a certain state in my mind 
that sets at work some sort of dynamics in it, 
of which, firstly, the one-sided attention and, 
secondly, the hypnotic state are the effects. 

The hypnotic state itself, then, can only be 
characterized as a complex of particular facul- 
ties or potencies. In other words, we call a person 
hypnotic, if we know that under certain condi- 
tions he will behave in a certain manner. We must 
not forget that the static and dynamic state of 
the soul is the main thing, and that the conscious 
phenomena which appear are only a fragmen- 
tary index of that state. 

The chief characteristics of the soul, while in 
hypnosis, seem to be great strength of simple 
memory, on the one hand, and great strength of 
what in the realm of consciousness is called 
“conviction” on the other hand. But this con- 


ORGANIZATION OF MIND 207 


viction is of the form of a mere belief, of a very 
strong form however, and lacks sufficient rea- 
sons. In other words it is quite isolated and not 
related to the whole content of former experi- 
ence. You may say so, or I say so; and therefore 
“so it is.” That is the general schema. You (or, 
in case of autosuggestion, 1) say that there is 
a wasp, that I am Napoleon, a child, a dog. 
Therefore I am convinced that there “is” a 
wasp, or that I really “am” Napoleon, etc. And 
now the content of the conviction gives origin to 
particular “determining tendencies” and thus 
controls the actions of the hypnotized person. 
The implanting of determining tendencies with- 
out logical control, then, characterizes the hyp- 
notic state more than anything else. 

Let us look back upon what we have said about 
the dynamics of so-called willing in general 
(page 188). 

“7 will a certain end, and my soul knows what 
is to be done in order to reach that end.” And 
what I will either stands in close relation to a 
particular perception or originates spontane- 
ously on the foundation of the dynamics of my 
inner mental life. 


208 THE CRISIS IN PSYCHOLOGY 


In suggestion, then, or in autosuggestion, the 
end which I will is either determined by an hallu- 
cination or an illusion which is wrongly taken 
for a “perception,” or is originated by the so- 
called spontaneity of inner mental dynamics in 
a misled way. The first is the case if, e.g., I take 
a spot for a wasp and try to avoid it, the second, 
if, e.g., I believe I “fam” a child, or a dog. And 
the being “‘misled”’ in the second case consists in 
my being ‘“‘convinced” of a something of which 
there is no reason to be convinced. 

But, exactly as in the case of so-called nor- 
mality, the being convinced and the willing a 
certain end in consequence of it, starts the un- 
conscious dynamics of the soul. Here also the 
soul “knows what is to be done” in order to 
attain the end. Therefore, it is not the general 
schema of the dynamics of psychical life that is 
changed in hypnosis, but the conditions which 
start those dynamics. It is for this very reason 
that hypnotic life runs along very fixed and 
definite lines, in opposition to dreams. It is in 
some respects like one long dream, but the gen- 
eral medium, in the midst of which it occurs, is 
not that of “sleeping,” but of being partially 


ORGANIZATION OF MIND 209 


awake, though in a “wrong” way. All hallucina- 
tions, positive or negative, are the effect of this 
general characteristic. 

This, I believe, is a correct analysis of what 
is meant by suggestion (or autosuggestion) in 
the narrower sense. We usually apply the word 
“suggestion” in two different meanings, it seems 
to me. First of all there is the “suggestion” or 
autosuggestion of becoming hypnotized at all. 
This, as we have stated, is a sort of willing, 
namely, first, to be mentally empty and, after 
that, to be attentive only in one particular direc- 
tion. We may call this primordial suggestion. 
The effect of primordial suggestion being real- 
ized, particular suggestion sets in. That means 
that a particular “idea” in the form of an abso- 
lute conviction, which starts particular deter- 
mining tendencies, is implanted. 

Hypnosis thus means the limitation of the 
logical faculties combined with an extension of 
the mnemonic faculties of mind. And this means 
a disturbance of the mind’s dynamic organiza- 
tion in so far as only a fragment of its dynamics 
is at work, though in a very perfect way. For 
the enormous extension of simple memory in 


210 THE CRISIS IN PSYCHOLOGY 


hypnosis must never be forgotten: We know, for 
instance, that the hypnotized person may re- 
member poems or even foreign languages that 
have been long forgotten. On the other hand, 
something is “forgotten,” namely, the totality 
of experience so far as it is ordered. The enor- 
mous extension of simple memory in hypnosis 
allows us to establish the hypothesis that, at the 
very bottom, the soul is able to retain everything 
that has ever been experienced during the whole 
mental life, the great limitation of memory in 
the normal state being due only to secondary 
obstacles, whose character is at present unknown. 

Does the brain play any role here at all? We 
do not know whether it does or not, as is the 
case also in regard to other problems. 

Kohnstaman”’ was of the opinion that in the 
deepest state of hypnosis the soul not only 
knows everything that has ever been experienced 
in the Ego-form, but also never falls into error. 
According to him the soul is “perfect” in this 
state, even with regard to morals. 

If this is true, we must of course make a dis- 
tinction between two hypnotic states, the one, 


10 Journal fiir Psychologie und Neurologie, 28. 


ORGANIZATION OF MIND 211 


analysed above, being only a transitory state. 
The transitory state, then, would be perfect 
with regard to memory, but imperfect with re- 
gard to judgment; the waking state would be 
imperfect in memory, but rather perfect, though 
not completely so, with regard to judgment ; and 
the “deep”? hypnosis would be perfect in every 
respect. However, more investigations are re- 
quired here. 


KE. Co-consciousness 

We shall now have to deal with two very im- 
portant concepts of modern psychology: Co- 
consciousness and subconsciousness. We analyse 
so-called co-consciousness first. Here we must 
be rather careful in our terminology, in order 
not to assume similarities which do not exist. 

The term “co-consciousness,”’ in its strict 
meaning, ought to be given only to the phe- 
nomenon of the evident existence of two Egos 
related to one soul (and body) at the same 
time. Now, being “evident” means nothing more 
than to be manifest. And the question is whether 
in all cases of so-called co-consciousness there 
are really two Egos manifesting themselves “at 


212 THE CRISIS IN PSYCHOLOGY 


the same time.” In some instances this seems to 
be the case. 

If a hypnotized person experiences a negative 
hallucination, i.e., does not see a certain person 
or a certain card in a deck, he will, when very 
quietly asked, if he really does not see, answer 
just as quietly, or even write the answer down, 
that ‘Sof course” he sees, but that he is not al- 
lowed to see! And in fact, a “somebody” with 
regard to the person in question, a certain X, 
must of course experience what the waking per- 
son himself does not, this ‘‘somebody” being 
related to the same soul that the waking person 
is related to. This ‘‘somebody” makes the waking 
person wnseeing and to this extent is subcon- 
scious, as we shall state later. But so far as this 
“somebody” knows that he is seeing and makes 
“the other’? wnseeing, he is co-conscious. 

Let me introduce here two terms: primary 
action and secondary action. The hypnotized 
person in his general behavior during his hyp- 
notic state performs primary actions, the ‘‘some- 
body” present while he is quietly speaking or 
writing performs secondary actions, using the 
same body. The simultaneous occurrence of 


ORGANIZATION OF MIND 213 


primary actions and secondary actions in the 
same body is the real criterion of true co- 
consciousness. 

A subconscious somebody may also, of course, 
at least in many cases, be called ‘‘co”’-conscious 
in a certain sense, as we shall see. We might 
speak of latent co-consciousness in this case and 
distinguish it from actual co-consciousness, with 
which alone we have to deal in this section of 
our book. 

The sort of writing manifested in the case of 
negative hallucinations, and the quiet manner 
of speaking too, is generally called automatism. 
Automatism, then, if occurring simultaneously 
with actions of a “primary” person, is the cri- 
terion of actual co-consciousness. : 

Automatism may also occur in the phenome- 
non of post-hypnotic suggestion. A person, to 
whom a post-hypnotic command has been given 
in hypnosis, may write the command down, when 
again awake, before the performance. He may 
write down, for instance, at 9 a.m.: “I shall re- 
cite a poem at 12.30 p.m.” | 

Who is the “he” in this case? He is our “‘some- 
body,” of course, for the person in question as a 


214 THE CRISIS IN PSYCHOLOGY 


waking Ego does not know anything about “his” 
writing. A very fine case of actual co-conscious- 
ness. It differs from the first one insofar as the 
“primary” person is here a normal waking per- 
son, while in the other case the primary person 
was himself a hypnotized one. 

Automatism may also occur in the phenome- 
non of dissociation. B, as a rule, is subsconscious 
with regard to A and may perhaps be called only 
latently co-conscious. But occasionally B per- 
forms “secondary” actions during the acting of 
A. And in these moments he shows his actual 
co-consciousness. 

On the automatism of so-called ‘‘*mediums” 
we shall speak later. 


F. Subconsciousness 

Before trying to find out the final basis of co- 
consciousness, let us study the subconscious 
state. The final analysis of what here is in ques- 
tion will then be the basis of both phenomena. 

Firstly, we find subconsciousness during hyp- 
nosis. For negative hallucinations can only be 
understood on the assumption that “something” 
prevents the hypnotized person from seeing what 


ORGANIZATION OF MIND 215 


it sees. But the “something” is a somebody. For 
he may manifest himself automatically, as we 
know. 

In the phenomena of post-hypnotic sugges- 
tion a subconscious somebody is also at work. 
He is a somebody, for he also may wish auto- 
matically. From this we may infer that he is a 
“the” also in cases where no automatism occurs. 
He “signals” to the primary person what to do 
and at what time. 

In the first case, in negative hallucination, a 
subconscious Ego was related to a hypnotized 
alter Ego; in the second an Ego is subconscious 
to a normal Ego. 

Subconscious phenomena during dissociation 
are conscious. The abnormal state B may be sub- 
conscious to A, but never vice versa. And, occa- 
sionally, a C may be subconscious to both. 

We may speak of a subconscious “Ego” here, 
a real alter Ego, in fact, for two reasons. There 
is, firstly, occasional automatism of the B-person 
performing secondary actions during the pres- 
ence of the A-state; and, secondly, automatism 
of the B-state later on, acting as a waking pri- 
mary personality, in which he knows about what 


216 THE CRISIS IN PSYCHOLOGY 


he has automatically done while A was in the 
ascendancy. 

It seems as if the B-state, while latent, knows 
everything that has happened to 4 during wak- 
ing in the form of knowing about another sub- 
gect’s knowing (page 196). B, in fact, regards 
A as another person, much disliked in most cases. 
And the same is true with regard to a C in rela- 
tion to B and A, when a third dissociated per- 
sonality exists. 

The complexes of Freud are mere subconscious 
“somethings”; they are not Egos. 


G. The Essence of Co-consciousness and 
Subconsciousness 
What do the phenomena of co-consciousness and 
subconsciousness, including all particulars and 
especially the knowing in the form of “knowing 
about another subject’s knowledge,” tell wus 
about the organization of the soul? 

The phenomenon of an extension of memory, 
so common in hypnosis, is not present in disso- 
ciation, the B-person or the C-person being not 
at all hypnotic personalities. Co-consciousness 
and subconsciousness, therefore, are not neces- 


ORGANIZATION OF MIND 217 


sarily connected with that extension, though 
they may be connected, for a subconscious per- 
sonality may also be an hypnotic one, as is the 
case in negative hallucinations, where he may 
even be called “‘subhypnotic,”’ and in post- 
hypnotic suggestion. 

A subconscious Ego is not the soul in its un- 
conscious totality. Such an Ego is like the 
normal one with regard to its structure, i.e., it 
is a rather limited Ego. 

But such an Ego is less limited than a thor- 
oughly “normal” Ego, for it knows, when wak- 
ing, about all the experiences of its companion, 
though in that complicated form which we may 
call dramatic. 

At the first glance it might seem as if we could 
say that in dissociation B sleeps during the pres- 
ence of A and is dreaming of A’s experiences. 
But this would be wrong, for to experience well 
ordered contents, though in a strange and com- 
plicated form, is not to dream. 

Of the dreaming of B we may only say that 
if there is a period in which B is the primary 
Ego, just like A in other periods, it is really 
dreaming while sleeping in this period. 


218 THE CRISIS IN PSYCHOLOGY 


A very strange feature, discovered by Morton 
Prince, is that the A- and the B-state of a dis- 
sociation may be the same person when hypno- 
tized. And this hypnotized person, related to 
both the A- and the B-state, knows all about the 
waking life ‘and the dreams of both A and B, 
though in the form of knowing about another 
subject’s knowledge. He may be called into 
waking, and then he is a new personality, C, 
with a “character” different from that of both 
A and B and now living his own life. And he 
keeps all his knowledge about A and B during 


this life, always in the strange form mentioned. 


H. Summary 
If we attempt to sum up all we know so far about 
various states of the soul, that is, about all that 
may happen to “me” or to “you,” to put it in 
non-technical language, we are entitled to say 
that the following modifications of such states 
exist: 
I The Ego in waking 
If The Ego while dreaming 
il The Ego in hypnosis 


Sy 


VII 
Vill 
IX 


MG 
XI 


XIT 
XITT 


XIV 


XV 


ORGANIZATION OF MIND 219 


The hypnotic Ego as co- or subcon- 
scious to I 

The subhypnotic Ego as co- or subcon- 
scious to III (negative hallucination) 
The Ego as dissociated waking Ego 
(state 4) alternating with another 
dissociated Ego as an alter Kgo 

The same while sleeping 

The same while hypnotized 

The abnormal dissociated Ego in waking 
alternating with VI 

The same while dreaming 

The same while hypnotized 

The same as co- or subconscious to VI 
A third dissociated Ego (state C) alter- 
nating with VI and IX, and knowing all, 
including the dreams, of both, as if they 
were other subjects 

The same hypnotic stage, which is at the 
same time the hypnotic stage of VI and 
IX 

The same as co- or subconscious to VI 


or IX 


If we call the primary-Ego that Ego-modifi- 


220 THE CRISIS IN PSYCHOLOGY 


cation which is the dominant one during a cer- 
tain time, we are entitled to say that there 
certainly is a sequence of various modalities of 
the primary Ego, the most common of which is 
the alternative existence of I and II, i.e., of the 
normal Ego in its waking and sleeping state. 

But the states III (hypnotic Ego), VI (dis- 
sociated state 4A), VII (the same sleeping), 
VIII (the same hypnotic), IX (dissociated state 
B), X (the same dreaming) XI (= VIII in 
Morton Prince’s case, i.e., the same hypnotic), 
XIII (the dissociated state C) may also be in 
alternation with I as main Egos. 

The first result, then, is that there is a great 
variety in the sequence of primary Egos with 
regard to their modality. This modality must 
be in some unknown relation to the structure of 
the soul. It affects quite certainly that part of 
it which knows itself in the proper 7-form, im- 
mediately known to “me.” 

Now each modality may at the same time be 
such that the primary Ego is accompanied by a 
secondary Ego, for which we also assume the 
I-form, or at least by certain dynamic frag- 
ments of contents, the complexes of Freud. 


ORGANIZATION OF MIND Q21 


These secondary Egos, or mere complexes, may 
be real co-Egos, performing secondary actions 
on the same body, or they may be latent co-Egos, 
which dynamically affect the main Ego and are 
called sub-Egos in this case. 

The existence of a primary Ego and a sec- 
ondary Ego at the same time seems to proclaim 
that the organization of the soul is, in some 
unknown way, split up into parts or sections, 
each of them ruling over only a part of the 
whole storehouse of memory contents. For the 
memories of the primary Ego and the secondary 
Ego are certainly separated insofar as the pri- 
mary Ego is limited, while the secondary Ego 
may either be limited or be in full possession of 
memory. There is, then, at least one “fragment” 
as to memory, or even two. And even if there is 
only one fragment, namely, the primary Ego, 
the secondary Ego which is in full possession of 
memory possesses its memory content in that 
strange form which is known to us as knowledge 
in the form of knowing about another subject’s 
knowledge, and which we know already from our 
analysis of dreams. 

Every Ego-form except the normal waking 


222 THE CRISIS IN PSYCHOLOGY 
Figo appears as abnormal, though that Ego- 


form also is only a fragment with regard to 
what we call the Ego of the soul, which is un- 
known to us in its peculiarities, unless it is 
realized in the “deepest” state of hypnosis as this 
is described by Kohnstamen (page 210). 

The strangest thing of all is the dynamic re- 
lation among two coexisting Egos, known as the 
action of subconsciousness. One of the Egos in 
this case certainly does not know about the 
other’s existence and contents, and the other, as 
we have seen, if it knows about the existence and 
contents of the former at all, knows about it as 
if a “‘stranger”’ were in question. 

How is it that there are two spheres of know- 
ing with mutual ignorance or, at least, with 
one-sided ignorance and one-sided “strange- 
ness” in the same soul, and yet that these spheres 
may come into causal relations in the second 
case? 


K. The Role of the Brain 
Does the brain play a réle here? We do not 
know. But we do know something about other 
cases in which there are many in the place of one. 


ORGANIZATION OF MIND 223 


I refer here to my embryological experiments. 
If one separates the first two or four cleavage 
cells of an egg of a sea-urchin or starfish, one 
gets as many fully developed complete organ- 
isms as one has separated cells. Now to each of 
these organisms belongs a soul; and if one does 
not like to speak of the “soul” of a sea-urchin, 
one may assume that the experiment has been 
carried out with the human egg, which is easily 
imaginable. 

Here, then, we have many Egos related to an 
amount of matter which, if undisturbed, would 
have given one organism. However, the condi- 
tions here are not quite the same as in the ob- 
jects of our present purely psychological dis- 
cussion, since in the embryological experiment 
there are as many Egos as there are souls, while 
in the purely psychological realm there is one 
soul, but many Egos. In any case, however, the 
embryological results show us that potential 
mental one-ness may result in actual mental 
many-ness, according to material circumstances. 

This, then, seems to suggest that material 
circumstances also play a role in the psycho- 
logical phenomena in question, and, if they do, 


224 THE CRISIS IN PSYCHOLOGY 


we should certainly be compelled to relate them 
to the brain. Disturbances in the brain would 
then seem to be the cause of disturbances in 
the soul’s structure, as in ordinary mental dis- 
ease (page 149). Of course, we cannot be satis- 
fied with generalities of this kind, but we have 
nothing else at present. 

If, however, we do say that the brain may be 
responsible in some unknown way for hypnosis, 
subconsciousness, dissociation and the like, we 
do not mean to say, of course, that these phe- 
nomena depend on brain activities in an essential 
way. All these features remain phenomena in the 
soul. But it may be that soul activities and 
forces receive certain data from the brain, and 
that they act ‘“‘abnormally” if the data exceed 
certain limits. 

Take, for instance, the two most important 
characteristics: subconscious influence and 
knowledge in the form of “knowing about another 
subject’s knowledge.” These are quite surely 
phenomena, which have their foundation in the 
non-spatial organization of the “unconscious” 
mind. There is one-sided ignorance combined 


ORGANIZATION OF MIND 225 


with one-sided knowledge yet strangeness, and 
the stranger is affected, in a very hostile way 
sometimes, by the one who knows him. All this 
is the case in the conscious field and on the 
foundation of one mind. What we have called 
simple memory (page 203) is mostly common to 
both partners, as exemplified by langange. 

Why is A not able to get in touch with the 
particular contents of B, while B gets in touch 
with the contents of 4, but in that strange “dra- 
matic” form to which we have reference? Func- 
tional disturbances of the brain might give us 
the explanation here, just as material disturb- 
ances may serve to explain superregeneration 
in spite of all vitalism.** 

The theoretical conditions are similar to those 
which we have encountered above: Memory is 
certainly not a “faculty” of the brain, but since 
it is not absolutely perfect in its working, we are 
obliged to refer to something material for its 
defects. Ordinary madness requires the same 
“explanation,” for the soul cannot be sick, it 
seems. And now abnormalities or even mere modi- 


11 See p. 148, 


226 THE CRISIS IN PSYCHOLOGY 


fications of *‘Ego-ness” lead us to the same re- 
sult, because we are not able to conceive how the 
soul might modify “‘Ego-ness” by itself. 

But once more it must be stated that reference 
to the brain, even if we went much more into 
detail than, unfortunately, we are able to do, 
would not at all mean that dissociation, hyp- 
nosis, dream, co- and subconsciousness have not 
their essential reason in faculties of the brain 
with regard to its “organization.” We might 
even conceive all these phenomena under the 
heading of regulation, so important in biology. 
The soul, then, would receive data from the 
brain and would make the best of it. 


L. Logical Remarks 
From a logical point of view all concepts intro- 
duced in this chapter are necessary concepts, 
1.e., concepts necessary in the service of order, 
as all concepts of analytic science ultimately 
are. Velocity, force, potential energy, etc., in 
mechanics, formative stimulus, morphogenetic 
potency, adaptation, etc., in biology, associa- 
tion, “determining” tendency, subconsciousness, 
etc., in psychology,—all stand on the same plat- 


ORGANIZATION OF MIND 227 


form. And if some of these concepts seem to be 
more complex than others, the reason is to be 
found in objects, but not in anything that is 
subjective. 

In the sphere of empirical reality, then, or of 
“appearance,” a particular subconsciousness 
exists just as well as does a particular potential 
energy, and, if we allow ourselves to take the 
step into metaphysics (page 158), both of them 
equally have their absolute correlate. 

All concepts of order, of course, must be 
clearly distinguished from one another and must 
be carefully applied in the particular case. We 
hope that we have done this; but we are not of 
the opinion that it has always been done by 
other authors. In particular the term “subcon- 
scious” is often used rather carelessly. 

Subconsciousness is not the same as the “‘un- 
conscious soul” with its primordial dynamic 
organization. It is a fragment of this organiza- 
tion with reference to particular material con- 
tents. Freud’s complexes, therefore, may be 
called subconscious, but that which according to 
our earlier discussions (page 169) determines the 
character and talent of a person is not ‘“‘sub- 


228 THE CRISIS IN PSYCHOLOGY 


conscious,” but is the unconscious soul in its 
totality. I fully realize that it may be difficult 
in particular cases to decide whether it is some 
subconscious Ego or some fragment of “the” 
soul that is at_ work; but theoretically the dif- 
ference between the two remains. 


V 
PARAPSYCHOLOGY 


W* now come to the last critical point in 
modern psychology, namely psychical 
research or parapsychology. It will turn out 
that this is the right place to deal with these 
phenomena, since hypnosis, automatism, sub- 
consciousness and the like are, more or less, 
among their prerequisites. 

The first problem is, of course, the problem of 
“‘factuality”—uin other words, the question: Are 
there really ‘‘facts” in this field? Many people, 
some years ago, seem to have decided this ques- 
tion, and there have even been some who have 
maintained that so-called ‘‘psychical’ phe- 
nomena “never can be and never will be.”” Such 
people, who were with God when he created the 
world, and who know what He was able to do 
and what not, never die out. It is interesting not 
to forget in this connection that what now hap- 
pens to parapsychology, happened also to 
harmless hypnotism about fifty years ago. It 
was “‘all a swindle,” and “could and would never 


230 THE CRISIS IN PSYCHOLOGY 


be.” The name of a rather famous psychologist 
is connected with such a “criticism” of hypnosis ! 

We ourselves, on the foundation of a rather 
extensive knowledge of literature and of some 
personal experience as well, are convinced that 
there are parapsychological or “psychical” 
facts of various kinds. We shall begin with a 
short classification. 


1. CLASSIFICATION 

By telepathy (Myers) we understand the imme- 
diate affection of one mind by another mind, i.e., 
a kind of affection which does not occur by 
means of the sense organs in any way. The af- 
fecting mind is called the agent, the affected 
one the percipient. Telepathy is spontaneous if 
it occurs without the agent’s conscious knowing 
and willing; it is intentional if the opposite is 
the case. The passivity and mere receptivity of 
the percipient is the chief characteristic of tel- 
epathy proper, if compared with the next group 
of parapsychological phenomena, in which the 
percipient is active. 

Mind reading is the acquiring of another 
subject’s knowledge in an immediate way, i.e., 


PARAPSYCHOLOGY 231 


without any normal sort of communication being 
given by this subject in the form of speech, 
facial expression, or any movement whatsoever. 

Mind reading and intentional telepathy may 
be combined, and, in fact, usually are combined 
in experimental work, the agent consciously 
trying to give and the percipient to “read,” i.e., 
recelve. 

By clairvoyance we understand the abnormal 
acquisition of knowledge about facts other than 
another subject’s knowledge, i.e., about material 
states or conditions. Clairvoyance may relate to 
the past, the present and probably also the fu- 
ture. In the last case it is called prophecy. It 
may, it seems, also relate to the minute “‘micro- 
scopical’” structure of objects, botanical ones, 
for instance, which are normally seen as total 
objects only, but which may not be “‘seen” nor- 
mally with regard to this structure. 

Telekinesis is the movement on the part of 
living persons of material objects without the 
use of his body organs. Levitation is a kind of 
telekinesis. 

Finally, by materialization we understand the 
forming of material structures, mostly of an 


232 THE CRISIS IN PSYCHOLOGY 


“organic” kind, on the part of a living person 
without using his body in the normal way, i.e., in 
the way an artist or engineer does, for example. 

This is a short classification of the phenomena 
in question. It might be given in greater detail, 
as will appear later, but as a rough sort of clas- 
sification it is sufficient. It is a classification that 
does not, so far, imply any sort of “theory” 
except that it excludes the “normal.” 


2. THEORY 
A. Generalities 
The first problem, then, is the following: Who 
performs the phenomena in question? Is it the 
Ego-part of the soul, or the “unconscious” soul 
in its totality, or a certain subconscious part of 
the soul? 

In spontaneous telepathy, mostly but not 
always occurring in a period of danger to the 
life of the agent, as at the moment of his death, 
it seems that the mind as a whole, and not its 
proper Ego-part, is at work. In any case a 
conscious “willing” to affect the percipient 
seems not to be present in the agent, though a 
strong thought of the affected person may oc- 


PARAPSYCHOLOGY 233 


cur. All these cases are out of control as regards 
their dynamics, and we are able only to register 
the fact. 

Experimental telepathy, usually combined 
with intentional mind reading, proves that con- 
scious willing may be effective: I “wish” to in- 
fluence you at a given time, you “wish” to be 
affected at the same time; and it happens. Clair- | 
voyance, too, may occur during the normal 
conscious state of the personality who happens 
to be its subject. 

But intentional telepathy as well as mind 
reading and clairvoyance is, in most cases, and 
certainly in the most impressive ones, bound to 
the so-called trance-state of a so-called mediwm. 
The same is true for the physical phenomena of 
parapsychology, telekinesis and materialization, 
though these phenomena may occasionally also 
occur during the conscious waking state of a 
person. 

A medium is a person endowed with the fac- 
ulty of performing psychical phenomena. Trance 
is in most cases a state of hypnosis with a par- 
ticular power of automatism in the form of writ- 
ing or speaking; it may also be a state of strong 


234 THE CRISIS IN PSYCHOLOGY 


activity of a subconscious Ego during the wak- 
ing of the primary Ego. The psychical phe- 
nomena manifest themselves indirectly, namely, 
in the meaning of the automatic script or in the 
words spoken. This meaning tells us about 
things which the medium cannot know normally, 
and which, at the same time, reveal to us inten- 
tional telepathy, mind reading, clairvoyance or 
prophecy. The physical phenomena performed 
by a medium, such as a materialization, appear, 
of course, quite immediately. 

A phenomenon which is above suspicion, but 
which implies perhaps the greatest enigma of all, 
is so-called psychometry, i.e., the fact that a 
material object, say a watch that has belonged 
to a person, living or dead, reveals to the medium 
particulars about this person. 

To sum up, we may say that in any case the 
unconscious or subconscious sides of the mind 
are stronger in performing parapsychological 
phenomena than the Ego-side of the mind. 

The mind of a medium, then, has abnormal 
faculties of acquiring knowledge and of per- 
forming actions. 


PARAPSYCHOLOGY 235 


B. Physical Phenomena 

As to the “actions,” telekinesis, levitation and 
materialization, they are actions, no doubt. 
They should, as far as materializations are con- 
cerned, by no means be taken as creations out 
of “nothing.” Matter is everyhere, and it is only 
necessary to assume that matter is ordered, just 
as it is in painting a picture or in building a 
house. But the hands are not used for this 
ordering. 

What is used, we do not know. But in normal 
morphogenesis likewise we do not really know 
how entelechy acts. The paraphysical phenom- 
ena are in fact nothing but an enlarged vitalism, 
a supervitalism, as it were. Matter which has not 
been under the influence of the vital agent, comes 
under this influence just as in assimilation. 

This is true, at least, for all those paraphys- 
ical phenomena which occur in material contin- 
uity with the body. And in most materializations, 
levitations, etc., this is the case. 

In most, yet perhaps not in all. But if there 
is no material continuity with the medium’s 
body rather grave difficulties, of course, arise. 


236 THE CRISIS IN PSYCHOLOGY 


It seems that there are occasionally “‘appear- 
ances” of human forms at a great distance from 
the medium, and it is also questionable whether 
all levitations or telekineses are performed by 
abnormal “organs” (as in Crawford’s case, for 
instance) growing out from the medium. 

Mere subjective “appearances,” of course, do 
not count. They are hallucinations, though per- 
haps of a veridical telepathic character. But if 
the same “appearance” is seen by many persons, 
even by very neutral ones, the case is different. 
Very careful and critical investigation must be 
made here. 


C. Psychical Phenomena 
In telepathy and mind reading we find a direct 
dynamic relation between mind and mind with 
no material intervention. 

This seems to prove that all mind is one at 
bottom. This is also a conclusion that is reached 
along very different ways of reasoning in critical 
metaphysics. All moral feeling, for instance, is 
only understandable on this assumption. 

While speaking of dissociation and co- or sub- 
consciousness we have learned that there are 


PARAPSYCHOLOGY 237 


many Egos belonging to one soul (and one 
body), one of which knows about the conscious 
contents of the others in the form, “as if they 
were alien subjects.” 

On the analogy of this fact we may try to 
understand the matter under discussion. Let us 
say that the individual minds are parts of one 
supermind, split up into individual minds, and 
that under certain unknown conditions one indi- 
vidual mind, on the fowndation of the one super- 
mind, knows about the contents of other indi- 
vidual minds, just as, in dissociation, one Ego 
knows about the other Ego’s contents. One dif- 
ference, of course, remains: In dissociation there 
is only one body, in parapsychological phe- 
nomena there are many bodies. 

We have stated above that in parapsychology 
the unconscious mind as a whole, or a subcon- 
scious part of it, is more important than the 
Kigo-part of the mind. This view is greatly 
strengthened by a fact not yet mentioned. In 
mind reading the percipient—who is the active 
side here—not only “reads”? what the other mind 
consciously possesses, but also what he has long 
since ‘‘forgotten.” 


238 THE CRISIS IN PSYCHOLOGY 


Telepathy, therefore, may be said to rest upon 
a primordial relation between mind as a whole 
and mind as a whole on the foundation of a 
super-mind and not merely upon a relation be- 
tween Ego and Ego. 

The interpretation of telepathy and mind 
reading, then, requires no particular hypothesis 
ad hoc, but only the hypothetic extension of the 
dynamical psychological or metaphysical rela- 
tions already established. For, to state it once 
more, there is, firstly, the mutual knowing among 
dissociated personalities, and, secondly, general 
metaphysics needs the concept of one supermind 
for various reasons which have nothing to do 


with parapsychology. 


D. Psychophysical Phenomena 
Clairvoyance is much more difficult to under- 
stand in principle. 

Knowing in the form of subject-object is 
(page 143) a primordial relation in the sphere 
of the Absolute. As far as the human mind is con- 
cerned, it is true only with regard to generali- 
ties. It is only the general categorical schema of 


PARAPSY CHOLOGY 239 


objectivity that is “innate” to the human mind.? 
In clairvoyance, then, it seems that the relation 
knowing refers to more than mere generalities, at 
least in a latent innate way; that, virtually at 
least, the mind is a miroir de V’univers in the 
sense of Leibniz, though only under exceptional 
conditions and in very exceptional persons does 
the performance of that “mirror” become con- 
scious in the Ego-form. 

Can we accept this theory? 

There is one great objection to it, and that 
is, that under the “mirror” hypothesis reality 
would seem to be absurd. For there is the phe- 
nomena of error. Error is not fragmentary 
knowledge, but apparent knowledge where there 
is none. Error, therefore, would be very strange, 
if at the very bottom the mind were omniscient. 
Or may it be that the pure mind is omniscient, 
but that its Ego-side is disturbed by the ma- 
terial body? Why, then, is the former connected 
with the latter? You see, we are at once faced 
with the great metaphysical and, indeed, great 
theological problems. 


1 See p. 12. 


240 THE CRISIS IN PSYCHOLOGY 


Let us try another hypothesis, namely, that 
there is a real sensation in clairvoyance, though, 
of course, a sensation not normally known. Then 
there might be some sort of “rays” at work, an 
idea so much favored these days. The hypothesis 
of unknown rays, affecting unknown organs, is 
not absolutely absurd here, and the difficulty is 
only that of explaining why so few persons may 
be affected by such rays, and these only quite 
exceptionally. Might it be that the mediums are 
beings on the way to a higher phylogenetic plane, 
to the “superman”? But enough of a discussion 
which borders on the realm of mere phantastics. 

Let me say a few words here about the reasons 
which must prevent us from accepting the the- 
ory of “rays” for telepathy and mind reading. 
I need only summarize the arguments brought 
forth in a very able manner by Tischner. 

If there is a telepathic action, say, in the form 
of an optic hallucination perceived by the perci- 
pient P and sent out by the agent A, the perci- 
pient *‘sees” his friend in danger, but the agent, 
though he may consciously think of his friend, 
certainly does not see his own body. Now the 


PARAPSY CHOLOGY 241 


ray theory would have to assume that there is 
a certain state in the brain of the agent, and that 
rays going out from his brain affect the brain of 
the percipient in a corresponding way, as is the 
case with two tuning forks of the same pitch. 
But this is impossible on account of the differ- 
ence in what is consciously or even un- or sub- 
consciously possessed by the agent and by the 
percipient. In mind reading, on the other hand, 
the percipient may have consciously what the 
agent has “‘forgotten”; and thus here also there 
cannot be a correspondence of “tuning” in the 
two brains. 


EK. Prophecy 

Prophecy is the greatest enigma of parapsy- 
chology. I myself have long hesitated to accept 
it as a fact, but I have become convinced of its 
existence by recent literature, on the one hand, 
and by two very extraordinary cases told me by 
careful and critical scientists, on the other. 

We might go back to the theory of the miroir 
de l’univers here again. The future, then, would 
be present in a certain way, not in the form of 


242 THE CRISIS IN PSYCHOLOGY 


a possible mathematical calculation, but imme- 
diately. Time would be a restriction in the field 
of appearance, nothing else. 

It is useless, however, to say more about a 
problem which we are sure we cannot under- 
stand in our present form of mentality. We 
therefore leave the problem where it stands, and, 
at the same time, leave parapsychology, with the 
exception of the spiritualistic hypothesis. About 
this hypothesis we shall have something to say 
later on. 

Most text-books or essays on psychology do 
not deal with parapsychology, nor, for that 
matter, even with ‘‘abnormal’’ normal psychol- 
ogy, such as hypnotism, if a paradoxical expres- 
sion may be allowed. But it is my opinion that in 
every science the problematic side is more im- 
portant for its advancement than the side which 
is well established and more or less definite. It 
is for this reason that I have thought it neces- 
sary to insert in this book the above “unusual” 
sections. 





VA 
THE PROBLEM OF FREEDOM 


HE word free ought to be applied exclu- 

sively to an event which is absolutely unde- 
termined, that is to say, to an event which is 
neither determined by the medium, nor by the — 
past history of the thing in which it occurs, nor 
by the essence of that thing. Bergson uses the 
in this sense. But Spinoza and 


ZS" 
! 


word “‘liberté 
Kant, when they speak of “freedom,” merely 
wish to assert that an event, say a human action, 
is not determined by anything outside, or by its 
past history, but by its own essence exclusively, 
i.e., by the “intelligible character” (Kant), or 
by the sola sua natura (Spinoza). This sort of 
so-called “‘freedom” ought to be called ‘‘cor- 
respondence to essence,” the word freedom being 
used exclusively to denote radical indeterminism. 

The problem of radical indeterminism may be 
discussed in a general or in a particular way, i.e., 
either cosmologically or psychologically. 

The cosmological problem deals with the phy- 


logenetic process and its continuation, or his- 


244 THE CRISIS IN PSYCHOLOGY 


tory, regarding this process as one event in the 
realm of superpersonality, and asks whether 
the single phases of that process are determined 
by the essence of a given superpersonal factor 
or not. In the latter case every phase of the pro- 
cess would be “made” in freedom. Bergson holds 
this view and speaks of God in the making (Dieu 
qui se fait). I myself have discussed the prob- 
lem elsewhere with the result that it may be 
settled insofar as we may really prove that it is 
insoluble.* 

The present volume is concerned, of course, 
only with psychological freedom, in other words, 
with the probiem of a so-called freedom of will 
(liberum arbitrium indifferentiae). 

Ordinary psychology as a particular science, 
i.e., as part of a theory of order, treats the mat- 
ter very simply, as, indeed, it is allowed to do 
as long as it remains what it is, namely, a theory 
of mere order. It simply negates freedom most 
categorically. 

Ordinary psychology argues somewhat as 
follows: 

Firstly: No element, “freedom,” is discovered 


1 Wirklichkeitslehre, 2nd edit., 1922, pp. 103 ff. 


PROBLEM OF FREEDOM 245 


in the analysis of the phenomenon of will, as a 
conscious possession (page 35), this phenome- 
non being found to contain only static elements, 
but no dynamic element. 

Secondly: There is moral feeling, in particu- 
lar conscience or the feeling of responsibility. 
But this may be only a mere index of the role 
which a suprapersonal entity has attributed to 
the single psychophysical process belonging to 
its realm. And since moral feeling may be con- 
ceived in this way, it must be so conceived by 
ordinary psychology. 

Thirdly: Dynamic psychology simply postu- 
lates the determination of every mental event, 
either by previous events in the mind, or by out- 
side stimulation, or by the essence of the soul, 
and it often actually discovers the determining 
factors in the form of association affinities, “‘de- 
termining tendencies,” etc. In the life of the day 
we all take the determination of the actions of 
our fellow men for granted. Post-hypnotic sug- 
gestion is a fine instance of a person believing 
that he is acting according ‘‘to his own liking,” 
but really not so acting. 

And yet there is one point which is apt to 


246 THE CRISIS IN PSYCHOLOGY 


make us doubtful as to determinism, one which 
may suggest that at least certain actions may 
be free, or, at least that man may be free at 
certain moments of his life. That point is this: 
The whole phenomenon of being conscious would 
be a superfluous element in reality, a mere lux- 
ury, if there were no freedom. 

In order well to understand what is meant by 
this statement, let us begin by distinguishing 
two kinds of freedom,—real freedom, of course. 
Schelling in his later years made such a distinc- 
tion with regard to the freedom of God in His 
relation to the world. We shall make use of it 
with reference to man and his actions. 

The first kind of real freedom may be called 
the freedom of such. By this is meant the possi- 
bility that there may be contents of willing which 
originate freely with regard to their quality, 
this quality being necessitated by absolutely 
nothing but being “made” as something entirely 
new. As we have no reason whatever to accept 
this sort of freedom, we shall not discuss it 
further. 

The second kind of real freedom is the free- 
dom of that or of whether or not. Under this 


PROBLEM OF FREEDOM 247 


heading the contents of will are considered as 
originating in a necessitated way; they are the 
effects of the medium, of the past experience of 
the subject in question, and of the constitution 
of his soul. But to say yes or no to them, or per- 
haps only to say yes or not to say yes—which 
is not the same !—would mean freedom. And the 
saying yes would be an act of that side of the © 
mind which knows itself in the form of Ego. 

At first glance this hypothesis seems to con- 
tradict our primordial statement that the Ego 
is inactive in its very essence, that the Ego only 
has consciously, but does not ‘“‘do” consciously. 
But giving the “‘yes”-accent need not necessarily 
imply real doing in time. 

The Ego would say “‘yes” or not say ‘‘yes” 
to a content of his will on the basis of the total- 
ity of his experience, of course. The Ego would 
“deliberate.” But, if there is real freedom, the 
Ego would not be forced by the deliberation. He 
would perhaps decide according to certain max- 
ims. But he would not be forced by these maxims. 
Feelings on the one hand, intellectuality on the 
other, would be consulted. But, likewise, there 
would be no enforcement here. 


248 THE CRISIS IN PSYCHOLOGY 


Only on this assumption would conscious hav- 
ing, or, to use a short word we do not much care 
for, ‘consciousness,’ be anything more than a 
mere luxurious epiphenomenon. Without this 
assumption consciousness would remain an epi- 
phenomenon exactly in the same way as it would 
on the basis of psychomechanical parallelism, 
which we have rejected. For all events would be 
determined by the unconscious side of mental 
life, and consciousness would only tell us what 
happens; that would be all. 

Now, of course, we may say that the world 
is what it is, and that consciousness belongs to 
its essence just as it belongs to the properties 
of a lobster’s body to become red from cooking. 
But consciousness is such an impressive char- 
acter of psychophysical life that it is difficult 
to accept a theory that takes all dynamic im- 
portance, all effectiveness, from it. 

If, on the other hand, we accept the doctrine 
of freedom, everything connected with conscious- 
ness at once becomes important. Sensation gives 
us knowledge of the medium or, in the form of 
pain, for instance, of the state of our body; 
feelings announce to us the general state of the 


PROBLEM OF FREEDOM 249 


soul, whether it is on a good road or handi- 
capped by obstacles, so to speak; thoughts are 
indexes of the intermediate or final results of its 
working; the contents of wishing or willing tell 
us what the soul proposes to perform, in cor- 
respondence with the totality of all activities 
present at a given moment. And all this, in order 
that I may decide, not about what there is to do, 
for this comes before me in the form of contents 
of my will, but as to whether or not “doing” is 
to happen at all in a certain case. 

It is only under the aspect of freedom that 
consciousness becomes important, not dynamic- 
ally, yet for the dynamics of the psychophysical 
life. No other aspect is imaginable under which 
consciousness might become really important ; 
without this aspect we are forced to regard the 
world from the esthetic point of view exclusively, 
that is, as a sort of mere theatrical performance. 

The contents of conscious feeling, wishing and 
willing, seem to be still more important than the 
contents of pure thinking in this respect. To 
have a thought content is a matter of contem- 
plation, a mere result of a static kind. But to 
have a feeling, a wish or a will content, is to have 


250 THE CRISIS IN PSYCHOLOGY 


something which, though static in itself, as all 
having is, nevertheless refers to the future, that 
is, to some sort of doing, though not on the 
Ego’s part. *“The mind is in a good general 
state,” is told me by hope or wishing or joy; “‘it 
is in a bad state, distrust its proposals,” 
nounced to me by sorrow. Finally, will contents 


is an- 


are signs of an immediate preparedness of the 
mind, which is only waiting for the signal. Now 
the Ego sets in, overlooking ‘“‘the whole” of its 
conscious contents (page 172) and gives or 
does not give the signal in freedom. 

I do not say that I have brought forth a real 
argument in favor of the freedom of will. I have 
only discussed an argumentum ad hominem. 

It is for you to decide whether you will accept 
it or not—and do not forget, at the same time, 
that the fact of prophecy, rare as it may be, is 
very much in favor of radical determinism. 

It almost seems as if the only “free” act were 
the freedom to decide about freedom itself! Prac- 
tically, we all do decide in some way here. Is this 
decision then really free? Again—we do not 
know. 

Let me still mention a few particulars: 


PROBLEM OF FREEDOM 251 


Only if consciousness is important for mental 
dynamics are several strange peculiarities of 
sensation to be explained, especially the impres- 
sive localization, ‘“‘outside in space,” of all optic 
sensation, and the localization “here on my 
body,” of all sensations in the sphere of touch. 
Why these very elaborate peculiarities of psy- 
chophysics if they are dynamically related to 
nothing? 

You may say that all suggestion and auto- 
suggestion is in favor of determinism. Certainly 
it is, at first glance. But if we look more closely, 
we appreciate that the first link in the process 
of suggestion or autosuggestion is the will to it 
(page 199). Is, then, my willing autosuggestion, 
ie., my willing to be determined in the future by 
autosuggestion, free? Thus we face our problem 
again, and again no possibility is given of decid- 
ing it in a truly definite way. Again you may de- 
cide “as you like,” and again also the paradoxi- 
cal question appears, whether your “liking,” 
which might lead to your decision about the 
problem of freedom, is free or not. Finally, con- 
sider what follows: By autosuggestion, as Coué 
and Baudouin tell us, a high degree of intellec- 


252 THE CRISIS IN PSYCHOLOGY 


tual and moral perfection may be reached. You 
will this perfection, whenever you will autosug- 
gestion. But man is a “moral” being, moral feel- 
ing constituting his ‘‘second nature,” as the 
Stoics expressed it. Therefore, if man is a moral 
being “by nature,” the “will to perfection” be- 
longs to his essence: he must necessarily will 
autosuggestion as soon as he knows what he may 
acquire by its use. And thus man may be a moral 
automaton! How to avoid this paradox I do not 
know! 


Vil 
IMMORTALITY 


HE basic fact, I have something con- 

sciously is limited in time; it has a begin- 
ning and an end. So it is, at least for ordinary 
experience, with regard to other ‘“‘subject- 
points” and therefore, also, most probably for 
me. What I really know, however, is as follows : 

That form of conscious having which is my 
own does not manifest itself any more in my 
fellow-creatures after a certain time, the end of 
its manifestation coinciding with the so-called 
death of their bodies. This is all I really know; 
but, because I know so very little, immortality 
is a “problem.” 

What I do not know is, whether ‘“‘end of mani- 
festation” means “end of existence.” This I may 
know only when my body is dead. But I wish to 
know at least something about it “now.” It is 
for this reason that I discuss immortality. 

General metaphysics has something to tell 
us here, but its statements are of such a general 


254 THE CRISIS IN PSYCHOLOGY 


kind that they cannot meet our proper psycho- 
logical requirements. 

Metaphysics tells us that knowing is an es- 
sential characteristic of reality (page 160), that 
an essential character cannot be destroyed and 
that for this reason knowing is eternal. But this 
does not interest us very much. What we want 
to know is in what form knowing is indestructi- 
ble, whether in the form of the Ego-person or 
not, whether combined with a conservation of 
the contents of personal memory or not, whether 
in the form of a temporal existence or in the 
form of a non-temporal one which would not be 
at all imaginable in a positive way. 

Our only help, so far, seems to be vitalistic 
biology, but even this cannot tell us very much. 
According to the theory of the autonomy of 
life, the essential agents responsible for the for- 
mation of an organism are not agents working 
in space and having their starting points in par- 
ticles of matter, but agents working into space, 
if a paradoxical expression may be permitted. 
May such agents not also come from “outside 
time,” we may ask, and go into “outside time,” 


IMMORTALITY 255 


when the phenomenon of death occurs? Of course, 
they may. But we have no means of deciding 
whether they do this or not, so that the temporal 
side of vitalism is much more problematic than 
the spatial one. 

Concerning the problem of personal immor- 
tality we have even still less to say than about 
the temporal side of the problem, at least if we 
want to remain on scientific grounds. Yet there 
are many possibilities : 

The personal Ego may remain a personal Ego 
after death, in time or not in “time”; or it may 
be absorbed by a suprapersonal Ego with the 
extinction of all personal ‘“‘Ego-ness,” including 
personal memory; or it may be absorbed in this 
way, and yet conserve its personality in a cer- 
tain unknowable way. Also, there may be re- 
incarnation, or not. There may be transforma- 
tion into quite unknowable forms of existence, 
or not. There may be a second death after the 
first empirical one, or not. And there may be 
many, many other things, or not. What there és 
we are unable to say—until we “experience” it 
ourselves, i.e., until we die. 


256 THE CRISIS IN PSYCHOLOGY 


A word must, of course, be said here about the 
spiritistic’ theory. Let me say, then, in the first 
place, that I regard this theory as a thoroughly 
legitimate one. It is by no means nonsense to as- 
sert that the personal soul (or entelechy, if you 
prefer) survives death and is able to “‘appear”’ 
again under certain conditions, manifesting it- 
self either in a visible form or at least by certain 
performances. But I do not believe that this 
hypothesis has yet been proved. We must be very 
careful, too, about what we admit as “proof” 
here. As long as we are able to reduce so-called 
spiritistic phenomena to telepathy, mind read- 
ing, clairvoyance, telekinesis or materialization, 
having their origin in the mind of living persons, 
we must so reduce them, unless fraud can be 
shown to exist in this connection. It seems to me, 
however, that there are no spiritistic phenomena 
known at present which may not be so reduced. 

Some authors have said that it is impossible 
in principle to prove spiritism, since the possi- 


1The proper English word is “spiritualistic,” as I well 
know. But this word ought to be avoided, as it is too 
readily accepted in the sense of “idealistic.” 


IMMORTALITY 257 


bility of some sort of parapsychological expla- 
nation can never be excluded. Take, for instance, 
the so-called experimentum crucis carried out 
several times by members of the British Society 
for Psychical Research. The experiment has 
given negative results so far; but even if there 
should be a positive result, what would follow 
from it? 

There is the case of a man feeling his death 
very near. He writes down a poem while quite 
alone. The poem is put away and officially sealed. 
The man dies. Some time after his death he seems 
to speak through the mouth of a medium. He is 
asked about the poem and the medium writes 
it down. 

Is this a “proof” of the man’s personal exist- 
ence after death? By no means. For the written 
poem exists as an empirical object and there 
is—clairvoyance! 

And even if survival should be regarded as 
proved, we should know nothing about its form, 
which is what interests us most. Might it not 
be that the mind of the dead has been absorbed 
into a suprapersonal Ego, with absolute extinc- 


258 THE CRISIS IN PSYCHOLOGY 


tion of personal memory, yet with the faculty of 
becoming the old personal Ego again under cer- 
tain conditions? Then we should be immortal, 
but not personally immortal with respect to 
what is the only thing that would make immor- 
tality valuable, in our opinion | 

If, then, I cannot agree that spiritualism has 
been proved, I nevertheless agree that there are 
certain facts the spiritistic explanation of which 
is more simple and less artificial than any other, 
so that the theory must be admitted to possess 
a certain degree of probability. And I have a 
fellow thinker here in a great authority on this 
field, William James. 

“Personally I must say,” says James, “that 
although I have to confess that no crucial 
proof of the presence of the ‘will to communi- 
cate’ seems to me yielded by the Hodgson-control 
taken alone, and in the sittings to which I have 
had access, yet the total effect in the way of 
dramatic probability of the whole mass of simi- 
lar phenomena on my mind, is to make me believe 
that a ‘will to communicate’ is in some shape 
there. I cannot demonstrate it, but practically 


2 This possibility was first explained by T. Oesterreich. 


i 


IMMORTALITY 259 


I am inclined to ‘go in’ for it, to bet on it and 
take the risks.° 

“I myself feel as if an external will to com- 
municate were probably there, that is, I feel 
myself doubting, in consequence of my whole 
acquaintance with that sphere of phenomena, 
that Mrs. Piper’s dream-life, even equipped with 
‘telepathic’ powers, accounts for all the results 
found. But if asked whether the will to communi- 
cate be Hodgson’s, or be some mere spirit- 
counterpart of Hodgson, I remain uncertain and 
await more facts, facts which may not point 
clearly to a conclusion for fifty or a hundred 
years.””* 

The facts in question are called “the Min- 
utes” by British authors, and are as follows: 

The medium in trance pretends to be “‘ob- 
sessed” by the spirit of a deceased person, and 
this spirit now tries to prove his identity. By 
means of automatic writing the medium writes 
down all sorts of particulars about personali- 
ties and events, which the dead had known in 


3 Proceedings of the Society for Psychical Research, Vol. 
XXIII, pp. 117 f. 


4 Op. cit., pp. 120 f. 


260 THE CRISIS IN PSYCHOLOGY 


his lifetime. The persons present at the experi- 
ments know many of these facts; others they 
have once known but have long since forgotten ; 
others they have not even known in the past, but 
there are other living beings, at a great distance 
perhaps, who know or have known them. 

You may find the explanation here on the 
basis of mind reading, of course, if only you 
concede that the medium may “read” what has 
long been forgotten and that she may also 
“read” in the mind of absent persons quite as 
she likes. 

But the strange thing is that the medium 
writes all her supranormal acquisitions, coming 
from very different sources, in such a way that 
they seem to come from one and the same per- 
sonality, the dead, who was not even known to 
the medium in many cases. 

The specific selection of the singularities from 
various minds is the one thing, the wnification 
into the schema of one personality, the dead, is 
the other thing that demands explanation. And 
it has often happened that ‘“‘the dead” expresses 
himself with all the characteristics he had in 
life, that he uses unusual expressions which were 


IMMORTALITY 261 


peculiar to him, that he speaks Greek or Latin,* 
not known to the medium, etc. 

I confess that this is to me the strangest 
phenomenon of all parapsychology and that, in 
any case, it prevents me from radically rejecting 
the spiritistic hypothesis in some form. Not re- 
jecting in a radical way and accepting are, 
however, two different things. 


5 This feature is called the Classics by British authors. 


VIII 
CONCLUSIONS 


1. THE CRISIS 


W* have called this book the “Crisis” in 
psychology. What, then, are the critical 
points in this science at present? To explain 
this means at the same time to give a short sum- 
mary of most of the essential topics we have 
discussed. 

Speaking literally, krino means I decide, and 
krisis means decision. What, then, is decided or 
is at least on the point of being decided in mod- 
ern psychology? I believe it is the road which 
psychology is to follow in the future. And this 
road depends on certain specific discoveries. We 
therefore may say that these discoveries mark 
the critical points in modern psychology and, 
for this reason, its crisis. 

The discoveries I am speaking of are not of 
the kind that new results in the sciences of nature 
used to be. They have, in most cases at least, 
nothing to do with new “facts,” unknown in the 


CONCLUSIONS 263 


past, though some such new facts are, of course, 
in question. 

The first critical point refers to the theory of 
elements. There is meaning among the elements, 
i.e., among the elements of the objects which I 
consciously possess or have; and this meaning 
appears in various forms: accents of order, ac- 
cents of truth, accents of the sphere of existence - 
and probably still other kinds of accents, not yet 
clearly worked out. This topic is still not psy- 
chology proper, at least if we call psychology 
the doctrine of something that is dynamic. It 
is phenomenological, to use an old word in the 
sense given to it by Husserl. The essence (essen- 
tia) of certain objects is in question. We do not 
face a discovery here that is comparable to a dis- 
covery in chemistry or in biology. Many people 
in the past have, of course, seen that there must 
be elements of meaning. But they have not seen 
it clare et distincte, to use the words of Des- 
cartes, but merely in the form of an instinct or 
intuition. It was for this reason that there were 
so many “private” psychologies in the past, as 
we explained in the beginning. Also the fact that 
association psychology has never ceased to be 


264 THE CRISIS IN PSYCHOLOGY 


an object of dispute proves unmistakably that 
many people instinctively felt that everything 
was not “in order” with regard to it, without 
being able to tell what was still required. 

The second critical point relates directly to 
association psychology itself, and not merely to 
the materials with which it works. People were 
aware that enrichment in meaning and in truth 
was the chief characteristic of mental life and 
that this feature could not be explained by as- 
sociation. But how was it to be explained? No- 
body knew satisfactorily. But the formulation 
—I do not say the “discovery’”—of definite 
limiting and directing agents solves the problem. 
Association psychology is really dead now. 

A third critical point was also seen implicitly 
long ago, but was made out explicitly in our 
time. This is the existence of the wnconscious, 
which is yet psychical and not physical. Leibniz 
already saw this under the form of the petite 
perception. E. von Hartmann saw it still more 
clearly, and used it as the basis of his whole 
philosophic system. But even this great thinker 
was not able to give an account of it in full. New 
formulations were necessary in order to do this: 


CONCLUSIONS 265 


subconsciousness, hypnosis, dissociation, com- 
plexes, and the like. We might perhaps be in- 
clined to say that we meet real new discoveries 
here and not merely new formulations. And this 
is true with regard to certain details. But in gen- 
eral the “facts” have been known here also for 
a long time, but were regarded by “scientific” 
people as a mere swindle or “superstition.” We > 
now know that it is not a case of superstition, 
but of fact. And, what is most important of all, 
we now realize that what was first regarded as 
only an exception, as an “abnormality,” is in 
fact quite “normal.” For even association or, 
rather, associative affinity, 1.e., the most primi- 
tive of all the dynamic agents of the mind, is an 
unconscious agent, only the results of its work- 
ing being conscious. 

The fourth critical point in modern psychol- 
ogy relates to psychophysics. The central prob- 
lem of psychophysics has become “critical,” 
namely, the mind-body problem. Psychomechani- 
cal parallelism or epiphenomenalism at one time 
appeared to be victorious all along the line. But 
it only “‘appeared”’ to be this. There were always 
some rather important authors who did not ac- 


266 THE CRISIS IN PSYCHOLOGY 


cept it, though they were not able to give sound 
and convincing reasons for their rejection. Now 
we have such reasons: The analysis of action as 
a non-mechanical phenomenon in nature, and 
the analysis of. the manifoldness of “the Psy- 
chical” offer them to us. Psychomechanical par- 
allelism will not raise its head again. 

Last, but not least, there is psychical re- 
search. In this field alone we have new facts, 
with regard to materialization, for instance, 
though here also most of what concerns us is 
only a new analytic formulation of very old 
things. 

All critical topics mentioned so far have one 
thing in common: They reestablish the popular 
view of the psychical and of its relation to me- 
chanics. The older psychology, to a great extent 
at least, had become absolutely alien to mental 
life as it is experienced by natural men. It “ex- 
plained”? something that did not exist! But 
modern psychology tries to explain what really 
is present. The popular view of mental life is 
deepened by it, but not displaced. 

A comparison of modern psychology with 
modern biology is very instructive and impres- 


CONCLUSIONS 267 


sive. In biology mechanism is overthrown, just 
as in psychology mere association is overthrown, 
with all its consequences. The parallel, is, in fact, 
almost complete: In psychology elements which 
are not of the ‘‘sensible” kind,* in biology ele- 
ments other than material ones. In both, direct- 
ing agents; in both, the wnconscious. Finally, all 
narrows down to one very important point: In 
modern biology and in modern psychology the 
concept of the whole plays a fundamental part, 
while in the older biology and psychology every- 
thing was based upon the concept of swm and 
resultant. In the place of the ‘‘sum-concepts,” 
association and mechanics, we now have the 


39 


“totality-concepts,” soul and entelechy. 
In the modern solution of the mind-body prob- 
lem everything that is new and important in 


psychology as well as in biology is centered. 


2, PROBLEMS UNSOLVED 
By saying that psychology is at a critical point 
and sees new roads which it now may follow, we 
by no means wish to express the opinion that 
everything in the sphere of mental life is now 


1 Anschaulich in German. 


268 THE CRISIS IN PSYCHOLOGY 


settled or solved, at least in principle, and that 
the psychology of the future can be devoted only 
to the investigation of details. On the contrary, 
there are many, indeed, a great many problems 
in psychology. which have not yet reached even 
the “critical”? point, which have not yet passed 
beyond those “‘private”’ and instinctive grounds 
upon which psychology as a whole rested so long. 

The most important of these pre-critical 
problems of psychology is the psychophysical 
problem. The rejection of the old parallelistic 
theory remains in the negative sphere almost en- 
tirely. Concerning this problem we know what 
is not true, but we only know in a very general 
way what is true. In particular it is the part 
played by the brain that is still very far from 
clear and very much disputed. There is no strict 
localization in the brain in the sense of the older 
theory—but what is there in its place? There is 
also no ‘“‘specific energy” in the sense in which 
Johannes Miiller maintains this theory. Nerve 
stimulation is not only a quantitative but also a 
qualitative process, but in just what sense it is 
qualitative, is the question. Why do I “hear,” 
when a certain definite part of the brain is stimu- 


CONCLUSIONS 269 


lated, and why do I “see,” when a stimulus af- 
fects another part? What does madness mean? 
What part is played by the brain in hypnosis 
and dissociation? 

We are absolutely ignorant as regards these 
questions. 

The only way, strange to say, along which 
definite answers might be possible, would be an 
experiment carried out by the physiologist or 
psychologist on his own brain, Otherwise we can 
never know whether there are defects in the es- 
sence of mental life or only defects with regard 
to its bodily expression. The self-experimentator 
might tell us as to this. But, perhaps also, he 
might not “tell” us, but would acquire the im- 
portant knowledge exclusively for himself; then 
the whole investigation would be indifferent for 
“science,” for science is of a social character 
and needs communication. 

Parapsychology or ‘psychical research’’ is, 
of course, also still in the pre-critical stage, 
though it is of great advantage to this new 
branch of science that it coincides in its origin 
with a period of psychology which is critical in 
its general aspect. In this field almost everything 


270 THE CRISIS IN PSYCHOLOGY 


that is “theoretical” still remains to be done, 
though, strange to say, not all parapsycho- 
logical phenomena offer us an enigma of such an 
overwhelming kind as pure sensation does. 
Telepathy and mind reading at least are phe- 
nomena of a simpler kind than normal sensation, 
because the brain, most probably, does not take 
part in them, while clairvoyance may at least be 
conceived without the interference of the brain. 
If the brain were required here, the conditions, 
of course, would be the same as in normal sensa- 
tion, for then clairvoyance would be “sensation.” 
The physical phenomena of parapsychology, 
levitation, materialization, etc., are a mere con- 
tinuation of biological phenomena, as under- 
stood on the vitalistic foundation. Only if there 
were materialization without any continuity 
with a living body would this not be the case. 
Thus most “psychical” phenomena may be 
understood by known principles which only have 
to be enlarged in a certain way. It is sensation, 
pure and simple, that remains the great enigma. 
I should not say that knowing or consciously 
having is itself an enigma. Here the question of 
“why?” is simply absurd. ‘‘Consciously having” 


CONCLUSIONS 271 


exists, and this is enough. But within the sphere 
of knowing we are forced to ask, for example, 
“why” I hear in one case and see in another, But 
a real enigma is present only if we are forced 
to ask and cannot understand. The particulars 
here are, therefore, more enigmatic than the 
generality. 

What, then, shall be our programme in psy- 
chology and psychophysics? It must be that of 
working in the most critical and analytical man- 
ner, studying details most carefully, avoiding 
generalities which are too easily acquired, look- 
ing out for exceptions, since exceptions are the 
best means of avoiding dogmatism, and investi- 
gating abnormalities, not because they are ab- 
normalities, but because they open the field to an 
understanding of what is normal. 

There are, then, many enigmas of a very im- 
pressive kind in psychology. But the greatest, 


though not the most “impressive,” 


of all psy- 
chological enigmas stands before every human 
being, whether psychologist or not, at every 
moment of his life. And the psychologist has 
only formulated, so far, that enigma, but has not 


solved it. It is the enigma of specific sensation. 





IN 


Accents, local, 13; of exist- 
ence, 20; of order, 16-17; of 
truth, 18-19 

Ach, 80 

action, 135 

activity, conscious, 42 

agents, limiting and directing, 
54 ff. 

Aristotle, 32 

association, 46 ff. 


Baupoutn, 205, 251 

bearer, 32, 37 

Becher, 124, 155 

behaviorism, 9-10 

Benecke, 156 

Bergson, 4, 24, 25, 26, 95-6, 
154, 243, 244 

bodies, defined, 85-6 

body, mind and, 115 ff., 153- 
7; my, 79, 86-8; difference 
between Ego and, 89 

brain, disturbances in, 149; 
role of, 222-6 

Brentano, 164-5, 167 

Biihler, 80 


CLAIRVOYANCE, 231 

co-consciousness, 211-4; 
essence of, 216-8 

complex, completing a, 68, 72 

complexes, 22 ff. 


DEX 


concepts, irreducible and 
indefinable, 16 

consciousness, 71-2; stream of, 
46 

Coué, 205, 251 

crisis in psychology, 1x, 262 


DESCARTES, 73 

Dilthey, 168 

dissociation, 203-4 

dreams, 194-8 

dynamics, centrifugal, 175, 
188; centripetal, 174; of 
the soul, 173-5 


Eeo, 8, 33, 43; difference be- 


tween my body and, 89; re- 


lation between, 115; other, 


8, 105 ff. 
Ehrenfels, 123 
elements, theory of, 12-20 
energy, defined, 96 
engramma, 123-4 
epiphenomenalism, 116 


Freines, 15, 33, 108 
freedom, 243 ff. 
Freud, 194, 197-8 


Horrpine, 19, 53 

Hume, 40 

Husserl, 5, 112, 164-5, 167, 
263 


273 


274 INDEX 


hypnosis, 199-202; causation 
and essence of, 205-11 


Imaces, 27, 29; memory, 65 
imitation, faculty of, 109-11 
immortality, 253 ff. 
insanity, 149-52 _ 

instinct, 137, 183 _ 
intensity, increase in, 95-6 
introspection, 7 ff. 


JAMES, 4, 258-9 
Jaspers, 168 
Jennings, 186 


Kant, 17, 177, 243 

knowing, 160, 238-9; forms 
of, 184 

knowledge, 176-7 

Koffka, 62, 80 

Kohnstaman, 210, 222 

Kriiger, 34, 190 

Kiilpe, 5, 32, 60, 80 


LEIBNIZ, 181, 239, 264 
Levy-Briihl, 185 
Lipps, 107 

local accents, 13 


McDovuaGat.t, 183 

Marbe, 5, 80 

materialization, 231, 235 

materials, theory of, 6 ff. 

meaning, 42; and significance, 
5-6, 16, 31, 83 

memory, 225; images, 65; 
simple, 191; specified, 191 


Messer, 80 

mind, 17, 71-2; and body, 
115 ff., 153-7; metaphysics 
of, 158-62; organization of, 
163 ff. 

mind-body, x 

mind-reading, 230, 236 

Miiller, 96-8, 118, 268 

Myers, 230 


Normat psychology, x—xi 


OTHER Ego, 8; concept of, 
104-14 


PARALLELISM, 115 ff. 

parapsychism, 116 

parapsychology, 229-41 

perceptions, 27 

phantasy, 64 

phenomena, physical, 235-6; 
psychical, 236-8; psycho- 
physical, 238-41 

pleasure and discomfort, 15, 
33 

Prince, 204, 218 

prophecy, 241-2 

psychology, causal, 44; crisis 
in, ix, 262; defined, 2; diffi- 
culties in, 26; historical 
review of, 3 ff.; modern, 
81-2; “my,” 8; new, 83; 
normal, x—xi; problems in, 
x, 267-71 

psychical, the, 138 ff. 

psychophysics, conception of, 
92-3; problems of, 94-103 


INDEX 275 


QUASI-THINGS, 64-6 


Reactions, historical basis 
of, 130-1 

Rehmke, 5 

reproduction, 63-6 

resultant, 132-5 


SaME, the, 123-49 

Scheler, 107, 109 

Selz, 68, 80 

Semon, 123 

sensation and volition, 102-3 

sensations, 27 

sensibility, 27 ff. 

significances, 16; abstract, 
18 ff. 

soul, the, 75, 78, 169 jf.; caus- 
ality of, 77; concept of my, 
70-2, 146; my, 73; my, and 
entelechy, 147; state of my, 
102, 119 

spatiality, 14, 98-9 

Spinoza, 117, 243 

subconsciousness, 214-6; 
essence of, 216-8, 227 

suchnesses, pure, 12 f. 


TELEKINESIS, 231, 235 


telepathy, 230, 232-4, 236-8 

tendency, determining, 61-2, 
67, 72, 182 

text-books, “‘naive-realistic”’ 
basis of, 93-4 

thinking, 56; and willing, 11; 
“over,” 40 f., 56 ff. 

Thorndike, 186 

thought, 31 ff. 

time, 14 

Tischner, 240 


Unconscious, the, x, 47; 
defined, 191-3 


VOLKELT, 108 
von Hartmann, 4, 264 


Watson, 186 

Weber, 95 

will, 34 ff.; analysis of, 35 f.; 
centrifugal, 38; centripetal, 
38; dynamics of, 188-90 

willing and doing, 39 


YERKES, 186 
you, the, 109 
you-certainty, 108 


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BF38 
by das ts aidestit: 


iM A 


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